My vote is for sale this year. At least for the local elections in Plainsboro, it’s for sale. ##M:[more]##The price is this: A sworn, public pledge to make the Plainsboro Village residential streets safer by lowering the speed limit to 25 m.p.h. The only streets affected by this are Maple and Edgemere avenues, part of Plainsboro Road and one block off Dey Road. Included in that safety pledge would be the installation of all-way stops, not needless traffic lights, at Maple/Plainsboro, Maple/Edgemere and Plainsboro/Dey/Edgemere.
Neither of these actions should be a surprise to anyone who has lived in Plainsboro anytime during the past 20 years. Residents have been asking, writing, petitioning and begging committee members for these
changes for at least that long.
Sympathetic candidates have agreed that it is intolerable that traffic is allowed to speed through residential neighborhoods. Unfortunately, as soon as a candidate morphs into an incumbent, sympathy for the residents evaporates.
I won’t care if the candidate is Democrat, Republican, Independent, Tory, Whig or Vegetarian-Centrist-Romulan. If you know a write-in candidate, send their name to the paper and I’ll vote for them. I am
tired of having a highway run smack through town while those who don’t live along the speedway talk of bicycling and strolling pedestrians.It’s odd that our government does the opposite of what their zoning
strives to create. You’d think in a town our size the left hand would know what the right hand is doing.
I’m glad that officialdom recognizes that Plainsboro/Dey/Edgemere is a dangerous intersection, but what they don’t seem to grasp that they made it dangerous by encouraging people to speed through a residential
zone! Without recognizing the root cause, the planned fix is the wrong one.
I read a news story recently about a Coast Guard captain in Fort Lauderdale after a hurricane. He was surprised that traffic moved smoother and faster without the traffic lights. Everyone stopped at intersections and waited their turn. Traffic planning studies have shown the same phenomenon. Why we need to spend over half a million dollars to ruin a perfectly good intersection is just another example of choosing the most expensive solution to every problem. As if our taxes weren’t high enough already.
So that’s the price for my vote: A public oath to introduce the above at each and every committee meeting until it finally, after decades of waiting, is enacted. Back up the pledge with a bond, too, if you please.
Peter L. Pfister
521 Plainsboro Road, Plainsboro
