Phillip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer, When it comes to parking, the Princeton Council finds itself pulled in a million directions., Merchants want longer hours for their customers to park, bike advocates need room to create bike lanes at the expense of on-street parking and residents want their neighborhoods protected, so the streets in front of their homes are not packed with cars., To help guide the thinking of decision makers, the town hired a Boston-based consultant, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, to study parking in the downtown and some of the bordering neighborhoods. The firm had the first of its public information sessions Wednesday to gather input from the community, having earlier met with merchants and the town’s parking enforcement officers., The focus of the study will be to see if there are steps the town can take to boost the economic vitality of Princeton, said municipal engineer Deanna Stockton at Wednesday’s session. An example of that is whether the time limits should be done away with., She said Nelson/Nygaard’s analysis would be at the “30,000 foot” level, as opposed to a micro approach. She said the eventual report the firm delivers to the governing body in September will include recommendations, but will not provide “all the answers.” The study also will explore the needs of rail commuters, pedestrians, bicyclists and neighborhoods adjacent to downtown., The town is seeking input through an online survey, at www.surveymonkey.comrprincetonparking. Members of the public have a month to weigh in., For those who attended Wednesday’s session in Monument Hall, they had some ideas. “More 24 hours resident parking,” someone wrote anonymously on a sticky note posted on the wall inside the former Borough Council meeting room., Members of the public were able to identify what their priorities are; protecting residential neighborhoods was at the top of the list., Resident Kate Warren, who is active in the community, said the town should require that anytime there is major event, like the upcoming Communiversity street fair, there should be satellite parking and people be bussed in to the event., Businesses also have their concerns., Peter Madison, a property manager for 20 Nassau St., said two-hour on street parking needed to be an hour longer. He said tenants have lost customers who won’t come back because they got a parking ticket. Madison, a former member of the municipal planning board, also pointed to the lack of employee parking., Local architect Josh Zinder said he felt the town needed another parking deck, in the area by the Blue Point Grille on Nassau Street. He suggested the lot behind the firehouse on Chestnut Street as a possible location, in a move that would take a lot of stress off the tree streets neighborhood., Ultimately, it will be up to the Princeton Council to make policy decisions on those and other parking-related issues. For instance, officials have to decide what to do with a parking lot on Franklin Avenue that Princeton University is giving the municipality. An unanswered question, at this point, is whether to use it for parking or to convert it into the site for housing., For her part, Mayor Liz Lempert did not return phone calls seeking comment., Yet there are competing interests. Bike advocates want to see the town create a network of bike lanes in town, a move that likely would require the elimination of on-street parking in some areas. That could have implications for Witherspoon and Harrison streets and Hamilton Avenue/Wiggins Street., Council candidate David Cohen, who is running unopposed and will sit on the governing body starting in January, was at Wednesday’s public session. He counts himself as a bike advocate., He said that in cases where streets are critical to the town’s bike master plan, on-street parking should take a “back seat” to safe bike lanes.
