By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
The Princeton municipal bus needs to run more days during the week and discontinue taking commuters to and from the Dinky station, a task force has concluded.
Former Borough Mayor Marvin Reed, chairman of a study group that the council created this month to examine the “FreeB,” plans to present those recommendations to the governing body at its meeting Monday.
The proposal, one that the council ultimately must decide whether to accept, calls for expanding the current daytime service from three days to six and adding one more loop around its current route that starts at Elm Court and goes through Princeton.
”It includes most of the senior housing and affordable housing neighborhoods in town,” Mr. Reed said after the task force meeting Thursday.
Highlights of the plan call for expanding daytime service to run Monday to Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., including a noontime service, on six one-hour loops. At the moment, daytime service is on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, during those same hours, picking up an average of 47 riders per day, according to data released Thursday.
Anyone can take the FreeB, which does not charge riders a fee.
The FreeB, started in 2009, began as a commuter bus to get passengers to and from Dinky station on weekdays. But it’s been under-used by commuters, of an average of 32.6 riders per day.
”It never really grew to the extent that we thought it would,” Mr. Reed said.
The proposal recommends ending the commuter service. Commuters would be advised to take NJ Transit and Princeton University TigerTransit buses as alternatives, according to the proposal. TigerTransit is free for anyone, and NJ Transit will be free for riders with a monthly train pass.
The council will have to decide Monday whether to go out to bid to price out all the various options to see if changing the service makes sense financially.
”We don’t have hard numbers,” said Councilwoman Jo S. Butler on Thursday. “We can’t accept the recommendation, I think, without the hard numbers.”
The town contracts out the bus service to Souts Transporation. Each month, it costs $5,350 for the commuter service and $3,360 for the daytime service. The deal is set to expire at the end of March.

