I want to share my observations as a resident on infrastructure, something that affects us every day. It is a contrarian view.
Infrastructure includes condition of the road and traffic flow on the road. The condition of the roads in West Windsor is currently barely average compared to other towns I have visited in this and other states. It used to be less than average when I came few years back and can again slip into it. Actually, considering the high taxes, the condition can be considered worse than average. For some inexplicable reason, maybe as a model exhibit, the road next to the municipal building remains perennially bad.
Traffic condition is another matter altogether for a town with preserved land and relatively sparse population. Our forefathers, or should we say elder brothers, had the brilliant idea to join West Windsor and Plainsboro schools in the hip but did not have the matching intelligence or foresight to develop infrastructure for it. In a perverse crossover design many residents have to take their child to the school on the other end of the other town. Moreover, the town keeps adding luxury apartments (not out of any egalitarian proclivity but pure greed to raise more tax money) and condensed single family developments (more people and more tax money per unit space) without any proportional increase in road space.
In the name of open space, the town is also designed such a way that you have to drive far (read “another town”) to get what you want — the result is more traffic, more gas, more carbon footprint. So you have significant traffic headaches, particularly during rush hours or after few downpours, in a town you thought you came to relax from the bustles of city life. There is no north-south road through Plainsboro and West Windsor like Princeton-Hightstown Road connecting towns east to west, no traffic flow analysis to modify road pattern, signal time, etc. The most egregious is the complete lack of any traffic engineering principles in the design of the traffic.
One prime example would be in front of Community and High School North in the morning (although they are in Plainsboro, West Windsor is associated through the school district). There it seems that the traffic pattern is designed by a 5-year-old and everybody including the school buses is going in every direction possible at cross purposes. It is a miracle through civility of the residents that accidents don’t happen there every day. The irony of all this is the mayor has a Ph.D. in engineering, the congressman has a Ph.D. in physics and both the towns are full of highly educated professionals.
It does not have to be this way. Using the simplest of traffic principles, the traffic can be improved and it does not have to cost a lot, which is a common excuse. For example, clear arrow on each lane, which is for what, at the crossing of North Post and Clarksville roads can at least avoid confusion if not accidents. In many cross sections traffic will be relieved by having a separate turn lane, e.g. crossing of Millstone and Cranbury. Millstone Road is so narrow that somebody taking left turn blocks all the cars taking right turn. To add insult to injury, an island was created taking space from already narrow space. Why a right turn lane cannot be created by taking 5 foot of land from the adjoining house, which has tree screens starting 5 foot from the road anyway, and compensating the owner accordingly?
Another major infrastructure issue is parking at the station. The Princeton Junction station, which helped the phenomenal growth of the town by making it the bedroom community for Wall Street foot soldiers, is also emblematic of the town’s core problems. The mayor boasted that the station has record ridership in the nation.
What he conveniently forgot to mention is that he has no role in the growth and more importantly he has done nothing to develop the infrastructure for the growth. The parking in the station is a joke and subject of jokes. One joke for immigrants is that you get green card earlier than parking permit. The other is that father applies for permit so that his children can get the permit when they grow up and start working. The town has managed to create an artificial scarcity of parking, a bureaucracy to go with it, and all the fun stuff that comes with them. You have to often park a mile away (or so it seems) and walk through mud or woods in rain or snow.
For daily parking on Vaughn drive, two old guys take $5 cash and hand out a piece of paper with the dates written by hand. I am quite sure that war-torn Republic of Congo or Somalia has a less antiquated parking system. The town is developing more parking spaces further and further away. It is destroying open spaces and woods to develop parking area, contrary to its own mojo. The town is authoritative but not responsible. The Parking Authority slaps you with a ticket of $60 or more with a “gotcha” mentality, while New York City charges $35 for a parking ticket. You need the subtlety of a metaphysician to discern the difference between the parking ticket, extortion, and fund raising. On east side there are 20 or more rideshare spots and a booth where somebody watches, in freezing cold or sweltering heat, if anybody is cheating. What a waste of human resource!
The town clearly has a trusting relationship with its residents. However, this does not have to be this way. Edison Metropark station has a multistory, automated, gated, covered parking lot and additional open parking for overflow. You always get a parking spot there for $5, even if you are from out of town. Compared to the Metropark, Princeton Junction station looks like a dump, more so considering its high ridership. If Edison can do it, why West Windsor can’t?
What do I know — the rough, narrow single lane roads, childish traffic at the schools, the parking woes at the station, all this may be a grand design to maintain rural, underdeveloped atmosphere for those who are nostalgic. All we need are some open air toilets along the train track or in the woods, to make the rural picture perfect.
Someone told me that New Jersey is one of the most corrupt states in the nation. I don’t know if that is true or there is a deliberate, malevolent usurpation of power in West Windsor (I have no such knowledge, although somebody getting elected repeatedly sure smells stench), however the way vested interest wins here, things do not get done the way they are supposed to, and residents are apathetic, the system appears corroded.
The town is dysfunctional in every sense of the word. It took many years to build the circle and bridge on Alexander road. God knows how many years it will take to build a parking lot like Edison if at all. Only two groups, WWP Community Education and WW Library, who provide the physical and mental child care (often adult care too) to the community, perform way beyond the budget and importance accorded to them.
Wherever there is a pot of money, particularly other people’s money, as in Wall Street, housing industry, federal or town budget, unintended or parasitic growth ensues which is hard to shake off. Soon enough, those paying the money are bossed around, controlled, monitored (electronically?) and forced to pay more money in the name of administration. If you interact with parking authority, school district, or municipal office, most often (not always) you sense intolerance, subtle arrogance, disdain and the defensive attitude, “who are you to ask me? I don’t have to talk to you. You are lucky that I am even . . .”
The backdrop of all these, the common excuse, is the school budget that threatens to suck the life out of the town the same way health care cost is doing for the U.S. economy. That is another story, another time.
Partha (Pat) Banerjee
West Windsor
