Local advocates have taken their fight to Washington, D.C., to stop the relocation of the Dinky station, the latest in an ongoing series of legal battles over Princeton University’s arts and transit project.
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Local advocates have taken their fight to Washington, D.C., to stop the relocation of the Dinky station, the latest in an ongoing series of legal battles over Princeton University’s arts and transit project.
Save the Dinky Inc. filed papers to be a party or intervener in a legal action that two rail passenger advocacy groups brought last month before the federal Surface Transportation Board, a railroad regulatory agency.
The New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, made up of a few hundred members, and the National Association of Railroad Passengers petitioned the board to declare it has jurisdiction over the Princeton branch line. In doing so, they want the board have the final say over any shrinking of the 2.9 mile line that runs to and from Princeton Junction.
The move is aimed at blocking the relocation of the train terminus some 460 feet southward, a step the university says is necessary. The university, having bought the land on which the station sits and surrounding property from NJ Transit in 1984, maintains that it is within its contractual rights to have the station moved.
NJ Transit has agreed. Last month, NJ Transit’s board of directors took the necessary steps to approve the relocation, a step that Save the Dinky decried.
”NJ Transit and Princeton University are acting unlawfully to abandon a key segment of the line without this board’s prior authorization,” Save the Dinky wrote in its filing with the federal agency that is administratively part of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder declined to comment Monday.
University Vice President and Secretary Robert K. Durkee said Monday he was “not surprised” that Save the Dinky had filed to be an intervener.
”We are very pleased that Save the Dinky has joined our petition,” said Jack May, vice president of the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, on Monday. “They’ve added a great deal of additional information that supports our view that the federal government should take jurisdiction in this matter.”
This is but the latest legal maneuver by opponents of the move. They have gone to court to derail the project, from seeking to overturn the Princeton Planning Board approval that was granted in December to challenging the zoning changes officials made.
Bruce I. Afran, the attorney representing Save the Dinky in the other matters but not in this federal one, said Monday he suspects Princeton University’s ultimate objective is to eliminate the Dinky so it does not have a train line running through its campus.