Save the Dinky

In that time, I’ve tried nearly every imaginable way of getting from suburban New Jersey to Groton, Mass. Easily the goofiest of these is a bus called the “LimoLiner,” which runs from the Hilton New York to the Hilton Boston Back Bay. It offers a wide range of amenities, which, at first glance, make it seem like a sweet deal. But the unpleasant reality of four hours on a faux limo-bus is summed up best by a commenter named Sam P. on the review site yelp.com: “It’s still a bus, and buses are nauseating.” So before I challenge the “replace the Dinky with a bus” plan on more substantive grounds, here’s an irrefutable fact: At no point in American history has a bus ever been a meaningful improvement over a train.

It’s not entirely clear how a plan to replace the Dinky was born. It seems to have been a collaborative effort between New Jersey Transit and local government agencies, and was formally proposed last month by the Princeton Regional Planning Board. So far, it’s garnered widespread support, even from this newspaper’s own Editorial Board. But the plan is deeply flawed on two counts: cost-effectiveness and logistical feasibility. As such, it ought not be implemented.

To begin with, it is inaccurate to say that replacing the Dinky with a bus rapid transit system would be less expensive than the status quo. First, it entails ripping up the existing train tracks, paving a road, buying new buses, hiring drivers and adapting both ends of the rail link to bus use.

And the planning board’s proposal doesn’t stop at the Dinky. Marvin Reed, chair of the planning board’s Master Plan Subcommittee, told me in an interview that replacing the Dinky with a bus is just one step in an intricate, “at least five-year long” plan to build a regional bus transportation network to connect Mercer County and the surrounding area. This meta-plan, as currently constructed, is “not financially sound,” to quote operations research and financial engineering professor and transportation expert Alain Kornhauser, since “the idea that people in Bucks County, Pa., would take a bus to come to Princeton to shop is patently absurd.”

Beyond this are three serious concerns about logistics. First, the real test of any transportation mode linking the Princeton and Princeton Junction train stations is the efficient movement of large groups of people during peak hours. In order to match current Dinky capacity, New Jersey Transit would likely have to provide several buses during the early morning and late-afternoon rush hours. Those buses need drivers, who can’t realistically be paid on the margin — they’d have to be paid an entire day’s wage for work only during the busiest hours. When I raised this concern, Reed’s only reply was, “That’s a capacity problem that we have to deal with.”

Second, the regional planning board has proposed running the new bus line up University Place to Nassau Street, in the interest of attracting more business for stores in downtown Princeton. But here’s the kicker: There’s already a bus that does just that. It’s called the Free-B and, by Reed’s own admission, local government has done a terrible job publicizing it. His solution to this poor publicity, though, is to nix the Dinky and extend its old route, instead of the nominal cost of adequately advertising a system that already exists.

Finally, the notion that bikers and pedestrians could use the old Dinky tracks is ludicrous. It’s predicated on two faulty assumptions: first, that anyone would want to walk or bike ride in the Dinky’s right of way instead of along Lake Carnegie, and second, that bike riders and pedestrians using it while high-speed buses are whizzing by every 10 minutes is safe at all — especially since, according to Professor Kornhauser, the current Dinky right of way isn’t wide enough to accommodate two buses and a pedestrian lane. Expansion would entail building at least one bridge and bulldozing roads.

The Dinky as it exists now needs to be improved. But tearing out old infrastructure and putting in a bus system isn’t progress at all: In fact, such a system would be inferior to the status quo. A far better solution would be to replace the Dinky with a more efficient automated train, which would run on the same rails and at faster intervals. Such a system would be a wise long-term investment, as well as a solution to all of the credible problems Reed described. The future of American transportation lies in railways, not buses.

Recent history shows that it’s hard to get Princeton students to care about town-specific issues. But the Dinky is as much the University’s as it is the town’s. And a great cultural landmark is about to be lost to make way for a year of nasty construction and an accordion bus, which will be a shame.

Even if that bus is a LimoLiner.

Charlie Metzger is a sophomore from Palm Beach, Fla. He can be reached at cmetzger@princeton.edu.