To the Editor:
As a town resident who uses North Harrison Street and the Harrison Street and Terhune intersection at least a couple of times a day, I wanted to add my observations to the ongoing discussions about where to go with future plans for those sites since the widened bike lanes were put in place.
1) South going traffic on Harrison hasn’t seemed to be impacted.
2) North moving traffic on Harrison might back up at the Valley Road and Terhune intersections, but generally not so that cars might have to wait for two green lights to proceed through the intersection.
3) On the other hand, with the new development on Terhune, one might have to wait for two green lights to proceed from Terhune heading west into Harrison Street. This is very frustrating!
4) Traffic is probably slower moving on Harrison Street in both directions. Certainly, there is now no passing on that road. Only gathered statistics can determine whether this has translated into a safer thoroughfare.
5) I almost never see a bicycle moving in either direction on Harrison, though I do see a few bicycles on Terhune crossing Harrison Street.
6) When heading north on Harrison and attempting a right hand turn into any shopping center entrance or onto Terhune, I feel that I can’t see potential pedestrian and bicycle traffic to my right as well as I could before the wider bike lanes were installed. Fellow Princetonians have corroborated this.
My conclusions from these observations are as follows:
1) Narrow bicycle lanes make sense on Harrison Street as they do town wide. The wider lanes haven’t increased bicycle traffic and might make it more dangerous for bikes as northbound cars on Harrison make right hand turns. Converting Harrison to one lane in each direction likely has slowed traffic without much in the way of backups.
2) The Terhune and Harrison intersection needs to be addressed so that cars don’t back up on Terhune heading west. Whether this would be best addressed with a right-hand turn lane on Terhune heading west or a traffic circle, as has been discussed, is a decision that should be made by traffic engineers.
I hope that as we go forward, the town is guided by economics and an objective assessment of traffic in this area and not by interest groups and wishful thinking.