Annals of Christie Hypocrisy

by: vakerr

Thu Jun 02, 2011 at 10:46:54 AM EDT

Just 12 days before he helicoptered to his son's baseball game and then rode in a limo some 150 yards or more to the field, Governor Christie told a Princeton University audience that he was a big fan of the University plan to relocate the Princeton train terminus (known as the Dinky) 150 or so yards  to the south to accommodate commuter automobile access to a parking garage. Christie:
 

I not only am willing to walk the extra 460 feet to pick up the Dinky, but everyone else is going to be willing to walk the 460 feet so that we can get the type of continued [campus] expansion and growth...that [will] keep this campus and this community a vital and growing part of the state of New Jersey.

The Governor sits on the Board of Trustees of Princeton University and also calls the shots for NJ Transit.  According to the University, a 1984 contract with NJ Transit gave it the "right" to ask that the current train terminus be abandoned in favor of one nearer its parking garage.

The current Dinky relocation plan was preceded last year by a plan to replace the train entirely with a Bus Rapid Transit system.  Over 7000 members who opposed that plan joined a Facebook group (SavetheDinky), and the BRT idea was scrapped.  The  plan to move the train stop farther away from Princeton's Nassau Street  is also controversial.  The proposal has been promoted as a part of an Arts & Transit project to be funded by a $101 million gift from Princeton alumnus Peter Lewis, who, coincidentally, is the CEO of Progressive Auto Insurance.  Another Princeton alumnus, Henry Posner III, who is the CEO of Railroad Development Corporation (RDC), opposes the Dinky move.  Posner has offered to fund a public/private partnership that would at no cost to Princeton taxpayers  permit Princeton Borough to acquire the Dinky land and preserve the current train service.  See stories at Save the Dinky.

Opponents of the University's train relocation plan argue that it will make the train less convenient for pedestrians and that ridership will decrease.  The University has offered to make up for the lost convenience by running shuttles to the train, a solution that would suit the Governor.  The distance is probably too short to justify use of the state helicopter.