I have loved biking and walking through West Windsor and Plainsboro ever since I was little,” says High School North sophomore Alex Inkiow. “So one day I wanted to bike to North from my house in West Windsor, and my mom said I couldn’t because it was too dangerous. So I started thinking about a solution to this problem. I love the Trolley Line trail and thought it would be a great idea to extend it into Plainsboro, but that wouldn’t connect to North and the other schools. So I looked up the area on Google Earth, and tried to figure out how we could connect the Plainsboro schools to West Windsor, and that’s how I came up with the Knight Trail as another component to the idea of extending the Trolley Line Trail,” he says.
Inkiow is aware of previous efforts to have the Trolley Line Trail extended. “There was a big push for it in 2010. They faced a lot of obstacles. I read all of the articles about it in the WW-P News, and my plan tries to address all of those obstacles.” The previous effort, he says, encouraged him: “I realized I wasn’t the only one who has thought of it.”
His proposed plan also stresses the inclusion of a In addition, I added the concept of the Knight Trail, which is totally new. I named it the Knight Trail in honor of High School North, and as a sign of school spirit. I have talked with students at the high school, and the student council, and they are very supportive of the idea.
“I also talked to Principal Zapicchi, and some of the teachers, especially Mr. Bond, the coach of the cross country team, and everyone is very supportive. It will benefit students, sports teams, especially the cross-country teams, and also ease traffic along Grover’s Mill Road. The idea is to make it into a school project: bike to school safely. That is the big difference this time around,” he says. “By having the support of students and faculty, I think this time we will be successful. It is hard to say no to a project that involves safety for students.”
Inkiow has also gathered the support from various groups, including the West Windsor Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance. “I am a student advisor for the alliance, and I worked with President Jerry Foster. He helped me put together the budget estimate for my proposal.”
“I have also met with the Rails to Trails Conservancy, Safe Roads to Schools, and Connect the Circuit, and all three are very supportive of the idea and want to help out. I am really impressed with Connect the Circuit’s concept, that bike trails need to connect to important places in town. As great as the Trolley Line Trail is now, it doesn’t really connect anything-it stops at Rabbit Hill Road. Under my proposal, the two trails would connect the Plainsboro school complex, an important landmark, and so would be really useful,” Inkiow said.
“I have already met with Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh, who has been really supportive, and Mayor Cantu asked for my presentation so that he could review it with the Plainsboro Committee. I have been at the Farmer’s Market a bunch of times, talking to residents, and everyone is very interested. I plan on meeting with the WW-P school board and Rush Holt, too.”
Inkiow says he has met some “wonderful” people working on this project, though he admits he has been challenged by the opposition from Bettie Greber, owner of the horse farm through which a small portion of the proposed trail would run. “She has made it very difficult. She said that she had reached out to me to try to explain her position, but that is not true. I have never spoken with her. She called my house twice and spoke to my mom — really she yelled at her and cursed at her. My mom was really worried and wanted me to stop working on the project, but I am not going to stop, because this is very important — not just for me, but for the entire community. I am happy to work out a compromise with Greber, but I don’t think she wants to compromise. I think she just wants me to go away. But I really don’t think the trail will be that detrimental to her horses, and might actually help her business economically. It’s not a win-lose situation. I want the project to be beneficial to her as well.
“I have really learned a lot about people,” says Inkiow. “It seems that some of the people who have lived in West Windsor for a long time are really concerned about change — they are very traditional and are concerned about their privacy, and the disruption that construction may cause, or even their way of life, especially those that use the open area for hunting. They don’t want to see anything new or different happening here. But not everyone feels that way,” he says.
Inkiow is in fact a life-long resident of West Windsor himself. He lives here with his parents and younger brother Chris, who is going into eighth grade at Community Middle School. “He and his friends have really been helping me out, and he will continue to work on the project even after I go to college. We really want this to happen.”
But Inkiow credits his mother with being his biggest supporter. She emigrated to the United States when she was seven years old from Bulgaria. “My grandfather was a helicopter pilot and helped them escape from the Communist government. My dad also came from Bulgaria, much later, to study. Both of my parents attended Georgetown University. My father earned his undergraduate degree in finance, and my mom majored in foreign affairs and then got an MBS from Columbia. She loves learning about history, and so do I — she is very glad that I have found a cause that I am so passionate about.”
Inkiow says he is thankful to go to West Windsor-Plainsboro schools because the district allows him to take so many classes that satisfy his interests — and that will help him with his trail project.
“My favorite subjects are social studies and science, and both relate to what I am doing now. What is even better is that this project has helped me figure out what I want to study in college — city planning and engineering. It is all about planning what the people want — going out to talk to them, find out their ideas, and what they think, and then using the right tools to make it happen,” Inkiow says.
