To the Editor:

Planning for next summer’s reconstruction of Valley Road is taking place now. Options concerning provisions for pedestrians and bicyclists are being considered.

We share the goal of making Princeton a great community for all, including walkers, bikers, and homeowners (categories which obviously overlap). Only one of the proposed options serves all interested parties well — to repair and maintain the current 4 foot sidewalks on each side of Valley Road. The other options, such as an 8 foot wide pathway on one side of the road, or one 6 foot pathway on each side, are, as a prior writer said, unnecessary, unsafe, intrusive, and unattractive. Please consider the following:

• Necessity: Thirty years of observation and personal experience have shown that the sidewalks along Valley Road are more than sufficient and quite safe for all the walkers and bikers who use them. They are never congested. On weekends, we often see serious cyclists on the street itself, and feel that sharrows (on-pavement signage) would be appropriate.

• Safety: Wider paths would decrease safety along Valley Road in two ways. First, they would make dangerous intersections more dangerous; they would increase the likelihood that bikers, taking their right of way for granted, would fail to exercise sufficient caution when entering the busy intersections at Jefferson, Walnut, and Ewing. Second, wider pathways would hamper the ability of drivers backing from driveways into the busy street to maintain the continuous vision necessary to do so safely.

• Intrusiveness and appearance: Wider paths would take a substantial amount of land from across the front of homeowners’ properties. They would decrease privacy. In increasing the volume of hard-surface coverage in front of houses, they would be very unattractive. In eliminating space from owners’ driveways, they would limit residents’ usage and parking. Finally, in no case is asphalt an acceptable surface for sidewalks. Property values are likely to decrease as a consequence of all these factors.

We share the value of making Princeton a great community for walkers and bikers. We also feel that it is essential that the town not take homeowners’ property and cover it with hard-surface pathways unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. The current sidewalks on Valley Road are well suited for all the pedestrian and bike traffic they may ever bear. So in the Valley Road reconstruction, repair the sidewalks and preserve our neighborhood!

Nancy Schreiber, Greg Hand

Valley Road