• An article examines whether the Dinky train in Princeton will be scrapped entirely, and replaced by a bus. (NYT)
• Diplomatic embassies are becoming greener (or trying to, anyway). (IHT)
• The issue of range anxiety with lithium-powered electric cars. (ClimateWire)
• New Delhi residents are happy with their new Metro system.
(WashPost) (NYT)
• A new report looks at increasing urbanization in China. (People’sDaily)
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Tags: Green Energy, Trains
The dinky is a fast and efficient way to connect Princeton to the Princeton Junction station. Traffic going past Route 1 will be disastrous for a bus to take in rush hour, which is exactly the time of greatest use of the dinky. It will also make life for car commuters worse, as the big buses will be hard to get around on these little roads. This is a bad move. NJ Transit is usually smarter than this, I hope they change their mind.
To XO – NJ Transit wants to run buses along where the dinky tracks now lie, not on streets from Princeton Junction to Princeton. After arriving in Princeton near the south end of the university, the plan is to have the buses run along the Princeton city streets to other parts of town. I think that plan has the possibility to be able to serve more folks who don’t live within walking distance of the dinky station, but it will also pose problems with traffic, which is heavy around Princeton at rush hour.
Reiterating what Beth said. The NYT article is inaccurate – just describing it as a “bus system”. I’ve actually emailed the article’s author about it, but he hasn’t messaged me back. The plan is to have a BRT route in place with more coverage for the town (instead of just one station).
I was wondering if it would make sense to convert the Dinky to a streetcar. It would be very cheap (only a small number of streetcars would be required) and the addition of an on-street running section at the north end of the line would allow greater coverage of the university area (possibly a one-way loop around the university?)
I’ve never been to Princeton, but I tend to agree with Andrew. Why not modernize and extend the Dinky into a LRT system? It could have more than 2 stops and serve a lot more than NEC passengers going to campus.
That is basically what they are proposing to do, but with a bus, which represents service reductions in other aspects of the operation.
What am I missing? Have they considered LRT? It is not as if NJTransit has no experience with the technologies.
There are already bus systems in place that connect to the Dinky: Tiger Transit, the FreeB and the regular NJ Transit buses. Do we really need MORE of those?! As soon as they hit downtown (or god forbid Route 1) traffic, we’ll have buses stuck back to back and nobody will catch their train on time. The Dinky can be improved but let’s not confuse that by making the service worse!
also: join our Facebook group ‘Save the Princeton Dinky’ here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=109785459051849&ref=mf
NJ Transit claims in their BRT analysis that LRT was initially looked at and dismissed. To quote their own paper:
“A range of rail technology options were considered during this study. Early in the study effort
light rail was considered and eliminated due to the inefficiencies and operating difficulty in
applying a unique technology to such a short rail line. ”
The real problem with the BRT is not replacing the Dinky. No one can argue that the BRT would be less efficient than the current train (though an upgraded train line could be as efficient as the BRT). The real problem is that there is simply not enough room in Princeton to build dedicated Right-Of-Way for a BRT system without doing major demolition and excavation on our streets (University, Nassau, WItherspoon, Harrison, and Valley are all candidates for BRT ROWs.). Seriously, where the heck do they think they can squeeze a dedicated bus lane on Witherspoon?
And if there isn’t dedicated ROW, it’s not BRT, it’s just a bus. BRT is a great concept. It just isn’t feasible for downtown Princeton. And if you can’t improve the system, why spend $600+ million to build a new one?
“A range of rail technology options were considered during this study. Early in the study effort
light rail was considered and eliminated due to the inefficiencies and operating difficulty in
applying a unique technology to such a short rail line. ”
I call baloney. They were just looking for an excuse to build a new BRT somewhere, and they figured that they had an opportunity. There is nothing wrong with applying light rail technology to the Dinky line; the electrical infrastructure is practically already in place; the gauge is common, the rails already in place can probably do for a trolley what it does for a coach or two, and even if the rails aren’t proper they could be replaced on the same railbed. As for “inefficiencies”, there’d probably be inefficiencies on a BRT line as well. If it’s building a terminal that they’re worried about, then maybe a new set of rails at either Princeton Junction or Princeton proper would help (leading to a railyard for a couple of vehicles or so). Carbarn? Probably doable if some property is grabbed up at Princeton Junction (or else just run the vehicles on the NEC from some NEC facility somewhere and get FRA approval to do that). Where’s the problem?
Ricky – those options were explicitly looked at. BRT was still picked as the most viable.