Cars and walkers share many Princeton roads and streets. Would a 15mph or 20mph speed limit improve safety?
A bill working its way through the New Jersey State Legislature proposes to enable municipalities to enact lower speed limits on local roads. The proposed new law, which was introduced March 21, 2013 by Assemblyman Scott Rudder and Assemblywoman Celeste Riley, recently moved through the transportation committee on an unanimous vote. Continue reading
Gleaming: The new University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro.
Barry Rabner, President of Princeton Healthcare System, the operator of University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro (UMCPP, formerly known as ‘Princeton Hospital’), was quoted this week in the Princeton Packet (potential paywall) on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the hospital’s move from Princeton to Plainsboro. Mr Rabner spoke about the emotion and excitement among hospital staff regarding the move, which ended a 90-year history of medical care in central Princeton: Continue reading
Alex Hrebin, who is attempting to walk across America, via whereintheworldisalexsandiego.wordpress.com
Updated 6.5.13: We made some changes to this piece based on info from ‘J.P.’ in the comments section!
Every now and again, you come across a story so bizarre that it takes you away from your daily work and makes you think. For us, the story- if you can call it a story- of Alex Hrebin Sandiego, is one of those events. Mr Hrebin is a native of Sea Bright, NJ, a small borough on the shore near Sandy Hook Oxford, NJ. At some point in April of this year, he set out to walk across America. You can follow his travels at his blog here. Continue reading
Bicycles in Princeton: not as widely used as in other College towns.
National Bike Week is now over! Did you cycle to work last week? Don’t feel bad if the answer is ‘No’. In Princeton, not many people cycle to work. Why is that? We are trying to answer that question in our poll today. Please click through to our Facebook page and give your answer at the following link:
Hwy 27 traffic heading towards Princeton, April 2013
This week we learned that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have broken 400 parts per million for the first time in human history. 97% of atmospheric scientists believe that this is likely the cause of rising global temperatures and extreme weather events similar to what we saw last year with Hurricane Sandy. Admiral Samuel J Locklear III, Commander of the US Navy Pacific Command recently described climate change as the greatest threat to security in the region, and this is coming from somebody who has to deal with China’s growing military ambition and North Korea! Reducing CO2 emissions could reasonably be described as the #1 priority facing our society. Continue reading
As this great video from Streetfilms shows, around 50% of kids used to walk or bike to school. And this wasn’t in the days of horses and carts– we’re talking about the 1960s– well within living memory! Things have changed. Nowadays, the vast majority of school are bused or driven to school. And as the video makes clear, things didn’t change by accident– we planned for cars, and that’s what we got. Walking and biking was discouraged by the building of more, wider roads, and development in car-dependent suburbs instead of close-in, walkable neighborhoods. Continue reading
Top – Princeton from Landsat imager 1984. Bottom- Princeton as seen by Landsat in 2012. (Click for larger image)
Last week, Google made available an astonishing resource, which enables us to review satellite imagery of anywhere in the US on an annual basis from 1984 through 2012. You can read about the project here. They were able to make some amazing images, showing, for example, how the Columbia Glacier in Alaska has retreated in the face of rising global temperatures (click the previous link for an animated GIF). Continue reading
Walkscore data for Ivy League Schools, from walkscore.com
How walkable is your college? One way to measure this is to use Walkscore, which attempts to quantify how walkable any location is by calculating its distance from stores, services, transit and other useful stuff. We previously tested Walkscore and found that although locations in downtown Princeton get scores consistent with being a “Walker’s Paradise”, some other neighborhoods in Princeton are rated as ‘car-dependent’. Continue reading
With a positive attitude, many more of us could take to our bikes. Via Simply Bike.
In Princeton, not many of us use cycling as our primary means of getting around. For some of us, the trip seems too far, or too dangerous. Others are not steady enough on a bike to head out on the roads. Even if you’re not ready to make cycling your regular means of commuting, there are plenty of ways you can participate in this year’s National Bike Week. Why not try one of the following ideas to increase your ‘cycle-power’: Continue reading
Traffic in Princeton is driven overwhelmingly by people from outside Princeton driving into town to go to work.
Everyone has a theory about why traffic in Princeton is getting worse and worse, but if you want to understand why traffic volumes have grown in Princeton, it helps to look at the statistics. A thorough analysis of car journeys in Princeton, based on data from the US Census and the American Community Survey 2007-2011 has revealed that approximately 50,000 car journeys take place every day to get the Princeton workforce to and from their places of employment. Continue reading
walkableprinceton 