With a long wait list for getting a parking permit at the Princeton Junction train station, the transit hub nearest to Plainsboro, Plainsboro officials have brought concerns to state officials about developing more options for residents.##M:[more]##
And now, the township is soliciting residents for their opinions via a Community Transit Service Survey, which is accessible online on the township’s website — www.plainsboronj.com — as well as in paper form at the municipal building on Plainsboro Road.
According to Les Varga, the township’s director of planning and zoning, the survey was a natural progression that started by the mayor’s conversations with former state Department of Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri about increasing transit service to the train station.
“The mayor said to the commissioner, ‘I don’t have an opportunity for my residents or my town to get to the train station because of the long waiting list for the permit. We need to have a new paradigm for transit service within Plainsboro Township,’” Varga recalled.
In addition to the waiting list, officials are also anticipating an increase in transit traffic because of the new train tunnel being developed under the Hudson River, creating a greater urgency for new options for transit access by Plainsboro residents, Varga said.
As a result of the mayor’s conversations with the commissioner, DOT officials told Plainsboro to draft a proposal to try to get discretionary funding to address the issue. The DOT sent one of its consultants to work with township officials and make an assessment, Varga added. “We have a consultant who was hired by the DOT, but is basically working for us.”
That consultant, Michael Baker, is listed on the online survey, which states that the purpose of the study is to “assess unmet local transit needs within Plainsboro and to develop potential enhancements to improve transit service within the township and to nearby destinations.”
Before the survey was created, Baker and township officials held two sessions in the municipal building with various stakeholders of agencies that would be affected by any new transit service, he said.
But in addition, “we wanted to have public input, but not do it just by having an open town meeting,” Varga said. “We wanted to try to give very specific kinds of questions answered, but also make sure it really reached the people who we think might be underserved — those who are home because of age or potentially a language issue.”
To address this, the paper version of the survey is available in five languages — English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and Hindi. “I think we may be able to capture some folks who would use transit, but there might be a language barrier.” The online version is only available in English.
To access the survey, log on to www.plainsboronj.com and click on the link to the survey on the homepage. To pick up and fill out a hard copy of the survey, go to the municipal building at 641 Plainsboro Road. The deadline for completing and returning the survey is Wednesday, September 30.
