Town Topics Newspaper May 20, 2015

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Volume LXIX, Number 20

Council Discusses the Tour Bus Issue . . . . . . . 9 “Strange Days”: Memories of Kathmandu, and a Song by John Lennon . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Princeton Resident John Fischer, 74, Dies . . . 36 Tiger Men’s Heavyweight Wins Team Title at Sprints And Girds for IRAs . . . 27 Hack Saving His Best For Last in Final Season, Helping PHS Boys’ Tennis to Sectional Crown . . . 30

Princeton’s New Art Gallery, the Brainchild of Patrick Ryan, Opens With Work by Heather Sturt Haaga . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 21 Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Classified Ads. . . . . . . 40 Music/Theater . . . . . . 20 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 14 New to Us. . . . . . . . . . 26 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 36 Police . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 39 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . . 6

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Transit Task Force Sees Light Rail In Princeton’s Future It may be more than a decade away, but commuters could one day have a direct link from Princeton Junction train station in West Windsor up to Nassau Street, where the French Market is currently located. Implementing this plan would involve converting from the existing trains that run between Princeton Junction and the Princeton rail station to a different technology; most likely light rail. The price tag is upwards of $45 million to install, with annual operating costs of about $1.7 million. A combination of funding from the municipality, the county, state, and federal government could make this vision of a future Princeton a reality, according to a report from the Alexander and University Place Transit Task Force. Delivered to Princeton Council at its meeting on May 11, the report revealed some recommendations about extending the rail link and easing vehicle traffic, which is destined to become more problematic as development continues on the Princeton University campus, the town, and beyond. The task force was formed in October 2011 as part of a memorandum of understanding between the former Princeton Borough, Princeton Township and the University. The idea was to study, evaluate, and make recommendations to manage the flow of traffic and transportation. So far, the task force made up of current Council members Lance Liverman and Patrick Simon, former Borough Council member Kevin Wilkes, University transportation director Kim Jackson, University community affairs director Kristin S. Appelget, and professional planner Nat Bottigheimer, has met 22 times. When the group first formed it was not clear that extending the line to Nassau Street was possible. “But now we know it is,” said Mr. Wilkes, who delivered the findings to Council. “We have some basic understanding of what the conditions would be in order to make that happen,” he said in an interview this week. “So after many years of arguing over moving the train further away from Nassau Street, it’s useful information for us to have to know how to reverse the trend.” The new technology could incorporate the train station that the University has constructed as part of its Arts & Transit development. A more costly option would be to move the station further south to the Continued on Page 8

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Wednesday, May 20, 2015

School Expansion Worries Neighbors

At a meeting next Wednesday, May 27 at the Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science (PRISMS), residents of Lambert Drive will get a chance to air their concerns about a proposed expansion of the school, which is housed in a former mansion in the middle of the neighborhood. PRISMS, which has purchased five homes on the neighborhood’s inner loop and has pending purchases of others, has applied for a use variance in order to expand from 80 to 240 students and add a two-story academic building, dormitory, dining hall, gymnasium, and parking lots to the campus. Residents of the homes surrounding the site worry that the scope of the project will add noise, traffic, and congestion, and alter the character of the area. But the school’s administration maintains that the expansion would be respectful of the neighborhood. “I can understand people would be concerned when they hear about the expansion,” said Matthew Pearce, PRISMS’s executive principal. “But we feel we’re trying to build a school of excellence. Our students are all very focused. Their days are very busy and

structured. We’re actually being careful not to disturb the state of the neighborhood by preserving the garden nature of the campus. Where we intend to build is inside our main campus, as it were. We feel we’ll contain it as best we can. It won’t cause a negative impact.” The project’s architect Bob Hillier (a Town Topics shareholder) said the expansion will have 75-foot setbacks, exceeding the requirements in a residential zone. “The buildings we’re planning are

well within the site,” he said. “And also, they are basically residential in scale.” Mr. Hillier added that the school was approached by homeowners about purchasing their properties, instead of the other way around. “In each case they have come to them and said, ‘Before I put it on the market are you interested?’,” he said. Housed in the former home of the American Boychoir School, PRISMS is a Continued on Page 12

Body Cameras on Wish List For Department, Says Chief Sutter With all of the discussions regarding policing now going on in the world-atlarge, Town Topics called upon Police Chief Nick Sutter to share his thoughts on such issues as the use of body cameras in the context of more low-tech community policing strategies that are being used to reach out to the municipality’s diverse populations. After the proven success of in-dash vehicle cameras, which the department has been using for 15 years, the next logical

step is to outfit officers with body cameras, said Mr. Sutter. Vehicle cameras can record police arrests and other encounters with suspects; they pick up incidents happening on the street; and anyone who is arrested or traveling inside a police vehicle will be recorded by a camera that switches itself on automatically. To date, Princeton is one of 10 out of 11 police departments in Mercer County that has in-dash cameras (the one exception Continued on Page 10

GIRLS NIGHT OUT: Palmer Square was all about the fair sex Thursday as the Ninth Annual Girls Night Out event offered a wealth of in-store sales, promotions, complimentary parking, music, raffles, food sampling in the Taste of the Square tent, Salon Pure styling demonstrations, sips from Princeton Corkscrew Wine Shop, and hors d’oeuvres from Mediterra, among many other treats. (Photo by Charles R. Plohn)

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