walkableprinceton

Segway, Witherspoon St, March 2013.

This Segway was spotted on Witherspoon Street near Small World Coffee this weekend. Evidently, some local resident was taking advantage of the wonderful weather to Segway into town! The Segway was locked to a traffic sign with a standard U-lock.

For those who are not familiar with the Segway, it is an electric ‘personal mobility device’, where the user stands on a wheeled platform and operates a tilting stand at the front to direct movement in any direction. Here is a short video of people riding Segways. Launched in 2001 amid much hype, the Segway was expected to revolutionize personal transport. It’s fair to say that this has not yet happened, and many people remember the Segway more from the time George W Bush crashed one, the 2009 movie ‘Paul Blart, Mall Cop‘, or the sad story about how the company founder died after driving a Segway off a cliff.

Despite all that bad press, the Segway could play a great part in helping us get around in future. Silent, and far more energy-efficient than cars or scooters, Segways could enable people to get around without using cars. The entry level Segway PT (‘personal transporter’) retails for about $6,000, so whoever was driving this machine clearly had made a significant investment. However, it can reach 12.5 mph with a range of 24 miles, making journeys of a few miles speedy and effortless. People often wonder whether it is legal to ride Segways on roads and sidewalks. In New Jersey the answer is a clear ‘yes’. A 2003 state law specifically written with Segways in mind authorizes their use on streets and sidewalks with no requirement for a license or insurance, but requires that users wear a helmet.

Walkable Princeton recognizes that compact, urban development brings many lifestyle, economic and environmental benefits, but can only be successfully realized with an integrated transportation policy. Although we are called ‘Walkable Princeton’, we support everyone having the freedom to safely walk, bike, rollerblade or Segway to their destination. Ideally, Segways and other mobility devices should be separated from pedestrians and cars, to reduce the risk of crashes. However, every Segway journey is a journey that takes a car off the streets, saving oil, reducing the space required downtown for parked cars and protecting the atmosphere. Congratulations to the Princeton Segway community, but please ‘Glide Safely‘!

Are you a local Segway enthusiast? What do you think about these devices sharing the roads and sidewalks? Feel free to leave us a comment!

Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert and several members of the Princeton Council expressed serious reservations last week about a new plan from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) to make alterations to Route 1 just south of Princeton. The new plan would close jughandles connecting Route 1 to Alexander Road South and Harrison Street, and make a new configuration including adding extra lanes and installing new jughandles. The estimated cost is $40 million. NJDOT are seeking urgent input on this plan, after their previous experiment at altering the road layout on Route 1 last fall ended with widespread local protest.

Traffic along Route 1 near Princeton is undeniably terrible. But is it possible to make traffic flow better by adding new lanes and tweaking junctions? It has been recognized for some time that following road widening projects, improved traffic flow can be short-lived, as new cars enter the system to fill up any available space on roads. This ‘induced demand’ results in a never-ending cycle of road building, followed by increased cars, leading to more road building. Meanwhile, fields and farmland are paved over to create new traffic lanes and jug-handles. Roads usually stay built after they are constructed, (even when they are full of pot-holes!) so paved fields are lost forever, reducing green spaces and increasing impervious surfaces that put pressure on watersheds.

How can we reduce traffic around Princeton without continually widening roads? We could force people out of their cars, by charging tolls or taxes for road use. But perhaps a better long-term solution is to remove barriers to people living near their places of work and stores, so that fewer journeys require the use of a car. This means allowing more people to live near where stores and jobs are. In Princeton this means allowing more homes near the downtown area. There is already a lack of housing in downtown Princeton, which is forcing people to live in surrounding areas like Montgomery township, Plainsboro and Lawrence. Traffic from people commuting into Princeton to work and play is a significant cause of regional congestion. If more people could live closer to town, we could take many cars off the road.

There is not a huge amount of undeveloped land around Princeton for potential car-lite local residents to live. Unfortunately, the few remaining acres are often subject to highly restrictive zoning regulations that make it hard to add many new homes there. Walkable Princeton has a goal of promoting walkable, downtown living. This will allow people to ‘live locally’ and reduce oil use and traffic. We believe that the alternative-ever increasing traffic and sprawl-is both undesirable and unsustainable.