By Charley Falkenburg, Staff Writer
WEST WINDSOR The Township Council approved an ordinance that guarantees up to $6 million in bonds and the refunding of $460,000 in prior bonds, jumpstarting the Parking Authority’s new South Lot project at its Feb. 13 meeting.
The new lot will be located at an old municipal dump near the Princeton Junction train station and will have 650 parking spaces. The $5.4 million project is the Parking Authority’s effort to ease parking shortage in a community of increasing commuters.
”I’m glad the bonds were approved and the ordinances are in place,” said Councilman George Borek. “The Parking Authority has been working on this diligently since 2008 to alleviate some of the parking concerns it’s a bigger issue than all of us can imagine.”
But Mr. Borek added that the South Lot is only part of the parking solution. He was concerned about the future potential danger of NJ Transit displacing commuters.
”It will be a big issue,” he said. “Those communities need to come up with some type of parking for their residents and have them shuttled over to the train station.”
Currently 1,700 residents are on the waiting list for a parking space. Parking Authority officials said that the three major lots near the train station have waiting lists as long as eight years.
The Township Council agreed to lease the property to the Parking Authority for 50 years. The authority will pay the township $50,000 annually including 10 percent of the net revenue for all its parking facilities for the first 10 years. The terms of the lease will then be reassessed.
Although the permit rates for the new lot are still undetermined, Parking Authority chairman Andy Lupo said he expects the rates to stay nearly the same if NJ Transit continues to share the rent expenses. Current parking permits cost $40 a month.
With the bond approval and the layout of the lot finished, the Parking Authority will begin to send out proposal requests to potential bidders.
Mr. Lupo estimated that the authority would be out in the market with the new bonds sometime in April and that commuters might be able to start parking in the South Lot as early as the end of December.

