To the Editor:

At the Tuesday, January 24, meeting of the Princeton Merchants Association I learned two interesting facts from a spokesperson for Princeton University. (1) The Tiger Transit busses circulating around town are available to all members of the public. (2) Princeton University is committed to encouraging the use of mass transit, discouraging the unnecessary use of cars, reducing pollution, and making a better world for current and future inhabitants. It seems only logical then that Tiger Transit absorb the Free-B, limited free transit service, and modestly extend Tiger Transit’s routes to encourage the use of remote (from the Central Business District) parking and use of the Dinky. Regular service connecting parking at the vast and under-utilized Jadwin/Football Stadium parking lots, the Dinky, and the Princeton Shopping Center along a regular route with marked stops would seem to accomplish all of the University’s objectives under its announced practices and policies with a very modest additional cost. I hope that the University and municipal representatives on the newly organized and funded transit entities work on this suggestion as a first (and easy) project in a course of cooperative ventures, none of which will be as simple or provide results so quickly.

Since the University has spent the time and the money to make the Dinky station usable, it can hold off on its plan to move the Dinky terminus until the newly formed transit entities can evaluate the use of the Tiger Transit bus service; the consequences (especially vastly increased traffic on Alexander Road) resulting from the state’s plans to reduce incoming traffic from Route 1 on Harrison Street and Washington Road by eliminating northbound access to Princeton by those two routes; and all other local transit and traffic issues in Princeton. The increased traffic on Alexander Road resulting from the changed Route 1 traffic patterns when added to the complex new traffic patterns and increased traffic volume on that same road resulting from the planned construction of the proposed relocated Lewis Arts Center; the proposed relocated Dinky terminus; and the housing complex proposed for lower Alexander Road and Faculty Road are a nightmare in the making. I know the University’s practices can better reflect its principals and wisely announced policies concerning traffic, mass transit, and pollution.

No one wants an Arts and Traffic Neighborhood.

Joseph C. Small

Hawthorne Avenue