Former school / council office building at 369 Witherspoon Street, as seen from the corner of Witherspoon and Valley Road. (Click to expand.)
The future of the 369 Witherspoon Site looks set to be one of the biggest redevelopment questions facing Princeton in the coming years. Competing plans are circulating for re-use of the site, but are any of these plans right? It’s time to put all options on the table and have a proper public discussion! Let’s consider the options… Continue reading
Latest rendering of proposed 255 Nassau redevelopment. (Click to expand.)
The proposed redevelopment of the 255 Nassau Crossfit gym (formerly Wild Oats market) is in doubt as NJDOT regulations, University inflexibility, and municipal red tape combine to stymie the plan. Skeptical officials look set to can the plan, but it is far from certain that this will result in a good outcome for Princeton. Continue reading
Engine Company No. 1 building on Chestnut Street. (Click to expand.)
There has been a firehouse on Chestnut Street since the former Borough built one there in 1879 (at a cost of $2,184). The present Engine No.1 firehouse dates from 1949. It was originally supposed to be at the corner of Hamilton and Chestnut, but ended up in a different lot mid-block. From its opening until 1963 Continue reading
Mayor Lempert says people in Princeton ‘don’t want’ commuters to live in town. Where should they live instead? Trenton? (Image from Princeton Community TV – click to expand)
Princeton is suffering an affordability crisis that has seen the town’s middle-class largely driven out in the face of high property prices and taxes. Even junior research staff at the University find it hard to justify the cost of living in Princeton, and more than 3 out of 4 local workers now live elsewhere and drive into town every day, creating traffic and contributing to global warming. What does our Mayor think is the answer to this issue? Continue reading
The New Jersey Supreme Court, who insisted on stricter standards for municipal affordable housing last week. (Click to expand. Image from judiciary.state.nj.us)
A key solution for Princeton’s ongoing traffic and parking challenges is to enable people to live closer to where they work, so that they have the option of walking or cycling instead of using a car. Sadly, Princeton has got so expensive that middle-class workers find it hard to live here. Affordable housing, provided by groups such as Princeton Community Housing is vastly over-subscribed. Anyone signing up can expect to wait years to find an affordable home. Continue reading
Parking tickets: Princeton-area workers avoided them by placing symbols of local businesses in their cars. (Click to expand.)
Reporting from Planet Princeton this week exposed an extraordinary scam where employees at local businesses bypassed Princeton parking regulations by placing menus, coasters and receipts from their place of employment in their windshields. Apparently, local parking enforcement did not write tickets for cars with these symbols, even when they were parked illegally. In response, the town has suspended the parking enforcement agents without pay. That’s quite right- but big questions remain unanswered. Continue reading
Population density in the Princeton, NJ region. Each dot represents one person. From US Census data. (click to expand.)
Brandon Martin-Anderson of the MIT Media Lab has created a new map showing every person listed in the US Census. This is the most visual exactly where people live throughout the USA. Zooming in on Princeton reveals the exact density of local population and what we see might surprise a lot of people… Continue reading
114 Elm Road, a 6-bed, 8-ba property available to rent for $11,000 per month. (click to expand.)
As part of an occasional series where we cast an eye over rental properties and real estate walkable to downtown Princeton, we invite you to comment on a local listing. You can find previous entries here and here.
Apartments to rent are hard to find these days- perhaps because they’ve been snapped up by newly-arrived students? However, we found one that is still listed as available, although it’s maybe not for the average Princeton renter… It’s a 6-bed, 8-ba property on Elm Road, in the Western Section of Princeton. It’s available for $11,000 per month. Continue reading
Hooray! A new in-street ‘stop for pedestrians’ sign at Chambers and Hulfish! But questions remain… (click to expand)
Last Wednesday, two representatives of ‘Walkable Princeton’ accompanied Dr Rachael Winfree, a Princeton resident, to a meeting of the municipal Traffic and Transportation sub-committee that deals with pedestrian improvements to local streets. (Regular readers will recall that we recently reached out for support regarding this issue.) Continue reading
Tomorrow, September 24, is Car-Free Day! Will you be leaving your car behind? Among the estimated 6,400 people who both live and work in Princeton, fewer than one in four use a car for daily commuting. Nonetheless, many more of us are still car-dependent. If Princeton were more walkable, more people might be able to get by without a car. But having no car at all is unimaginable for many local families. But how about getting by with just one car? Does that sound possible? And how many families currently have just one car? We dove into the US Census Bureau’s ‘American Fact Finder’ to investigate how many car-free households there are in Princeton. The results were interesting! Continue reading
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