Volume LXXII, Number 19
Mother’s Day Pages 14, 15 “I Am Innocent” Talk and Exhibit at PPL . . . . . . . 6 Exotic Tick Species Found at Hunterdon Farm. . . . 8 Rhapsodies in Reverse. . 16 Caged Premieres at Passage Theatre. . . . . 27 PU Women’s Lax Wins Ivy League Tourney, Headed to NCAAs . . . . . . . . . 32 Hun Boys’ Lacrosse Tops Lawrenceville to Win Prep A Crown. . . . . . . . . . 36
Paul Cooke Helps PHS Baseball Make MCT Quarters. . . . . . . . . . 35 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Berkshire Hathaway Fox & Roach Realtors. . 24, 25 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Classified Ads . . . . . . . 40 Mailbox. . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Music/Theater . . . . . . . 28 New To Us . . . . . . . 20, 21 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . . 39 Sports. . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Topics of the Town . . . . . 6 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . . 7
www.towntopics.com
Princeton Bike Month Presents Wealth Of Opportunities For All
Beta bike lanes, a new bike corral, Ciclovia, valet bike parking, the Bike Rodeo, the Police Unity Tour, Bike To School Day, Bike To Work Week — May is National Bike Month, and Princeton police, municipal engineers, Council members and Bicycle Advisory Committee members are taking the lead. “This is all part of a bike culture that we’re trying to build in town, keeping pace with changes in our community,” said Council member Tim Quinn as he discussed the creation of experimental beta bike lanes on Wiggins Street and Hamilton Avenue from the Princeton Public Library to Walnut Lane. The experiment will provide two dedicated bike lanes on this busy thoroughfare over a ten day period from May 1929. “It will be a demonstration of what this road could look like,” Quinn said. Bike riders will have the opportunity to enjoy a more comfortable biking experience, minimizing competition for space on the roadway and on the sidewalk. On-street parking will be suspended on that stretch of Wiggins-Hamilton during the ten-day period. “What happens if we provide students at Princeton High School and John Witherspoon Middle School with a safer way to ride to school and to downtown and the library?” Quinn asked. “Some people have asked why we didn’t think of this sooner. Bike lanes are good for everyone: pedestrians, motorists, and bikers—and a win-win-win for the neighborhood.” Volunteers are needed for two-hour stints on Friday afternoon, May 18, and Saturday morning, May 19, to help install the temporary bike lane markings, under the supervision of the Princeton Police Department (PPD) and the Municipal Engineering Department. Sign up on the princetonnj.gov website. Quinn and his colleagues will be monitoring the effects of the beta lanes, engaging the neighborhood and examining how people feel about the lanes. Bike and pedestrian counters will be used to measure traffic before, during, and after the installation of the bike lanes. Many rode bicycles to Communiversity on April 29 and took advantage of valet bike parking on the lawn at HiTops. The Bicycle Advisory Committee reports parking a total of 65 human-powered vehicles, including bikes, strollers, and scooters. Continued on Page 11
Ask for our
75¢ at newsstands
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Council Prepares Affordable Housing Plan Princeton Council, currently in the process of drafting its Housing Element and Fair Share Plan (HEFSP) to comply with state affordable housing requirements, announced its Affordable Housing Compliance Schedule at its May 7 meeting. At the meeting, Council also presented former Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman with an award of recognition, proclaimed May 2018 Walk and Bike to School Month, and held a working session on the ongoing parking meter and smart card replacement project. The Council and Planning Board will hold a joint public meeting on May 17 to present the proposed affordable housing sites to the public and invite community feedback. In the meantime, an updated FAQ on affordable housing has been posted on the municipal website, princetonnj.gov.
A recent court decision set Princeton’s affordable housing obligation at 753 new units counting from 1999 to 2025. More than 200 units have already been constructed since 1999, most recently at Copperwood, AvalonBay, Merwick-Stanworth, Carnevale Plaza and three group homes for disabled adults. The next step is for Princeton to submit a plan showing how it will achieve the remainder of its 753-unit obligation. Following the May 17 session, the Planning Board will meet on June 7 for a public hearing and adoption of HEFSP, and the Council will meet the following week to endorse HEFSP. The Council is scheduled for a hearing in Trenton on July 24 to have the housing plan approved by the court. After court approval of the plan the Council will introduce necessary ordinances and resolutions, to be reviewed by the Planning Board with the Council
DESIGN CHAMP: Town Topics recently invited elementary school children to create an ad for their favorite Princeton-area business. Five-year-old Violeta, a student at Stuart Country Day School, was the favorite with her colorful “ad” for Jay’s Cycles. Artwork from the runners-up can be found on page 12.
Extremit y MRI -
for arm and leg joints.
609.921.8211 | www.PrincetonRadiology.com
planning a public hearing and adoption of the ordinances by the end of August. In the Town Topics Mailbox this week, Mayor Liz Lempert and Council President Jenny Crumiller offer further explanation of the challenges and rewards of the affordable housing initiative. “We all want our seniors to be able to afford to grow old in our community, our children to afford to move back as adults, and our families who have lived here for generations to continue to do so,” they wrote. “Princeton has a long-established practice of building affordable housing to help address these goals. Affordable units Continued on Page 10
Rally for Student in Iran; Korea Expert To Speak At Coalition Event
Just three days after President Trump’s announcement that the United States will withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran, graduate students and other members of the Princeton University community have planned a rally to support Xiyue Wang, their colleague who has been imprisoned in Iran for almost two years. The rally to urge Wang’s release and return to his country and family will take place on the north lawn in front of Frist Campus Center on Friday, May 11 at 7 p.m., with scheduled speakers including Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker, Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert, Wang’s wife Hua Qu, and other family and friends. A PhD student in the Princeton University History Department, Wang was arrested in August 2016 when he was in Iran continuing his Farsi language studies and conducting scholarly research for his dissertation on 19th-century Eurasia. In April 2017 he was sentenced by the Iranian judiciary to ten years imprisonment on charges of espionage, in a proceeding that lacked basic due process and other legal protections, according to the rally organizers. The organizers describe Wang as “an innocent student who has tragically become a victim of the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran.” There appears to have been little progress on diplomatic fronts to secure his release and return to the U.S. With U.S.-Iran relations on a delicate footing, the Princeton-based Coalition for Peace Action (CFPA) had been Continued on Page 11