Dear Ms. Neuhaus,
I am responding to some questions raised as part of the roundtable stakeholder's EIS process. Recently, I attended a modeling meeting in West Windsor. My problem lies with an assumption used in that presentation - that building a new road will not create more traffic, but instead divert traffic from already overcrowded roads. While that may be the immediate result, I strongly doubt that even in the short run the opposite will not happen ie. the encouragment of more growth and more traffic in the greater Princeton area of Central New Jersey. It is intuitively obvious that new infrastructure encourages people to think that a continuing problem is solved and then it follows - why not move to an area as attractive as Princeton with its new schools, roads, etc. Doesn't it also follow that you wouldn't want to build houses in inaccesible areas? Again why build if we can't get to it? Also if building roads didn't encourage economic growth why has our g! overnment's foreign aid program always stressed the importance of building new roads in impoverished nations overseas in order to encourage enconomic growth? I am not satisfied with the explanation heard at the presentation that "we didn't find this to be the case." The facts to support this so-called "Truth" were never adequately presented. So, I have to suspect that certain assumptions are being ignored either because it doesn't fit the "agenda" or the model. And to present a model as being infallible without taking into account this observation means the model is fundamently flawed or that the agenda is hidden and the reasoning disingenuous.
I would also like to stress that almost any solution that calls for more highway building is probably not a solution but a response to a continuing problem that puts unique and irreplacable resources at risk. To risk losing something permanently for a temporary solution makes little sense.
Thank you,
Ed Pfeiffer