Parking authority, council move to clean up former bus garage near Princeton Junction for parking and pocket park

The West Windsor Parking Authority and township council advanced plans on May 19 to repurpose a long-idle, contaminated bus-garage parcel adjacent to the Princeton Junction station into commuter parking and a small pocket park.

The nut graf: The parking authority said removing the abandoned structure and an underground tank, remediating soil and converting the footprint to about 40 parking spaces with landscaping and pedestrian improvements will improve an eyesore, add commuter capacity and create a small public-use area. Authority officials said changing the redevelopment-plan language now enables them to apply for remediation grants.

Andy Lupo, chair of the West Windsor Parking Authority, told the council the site has been unused for decades and contains contamination that must be addressed before reuse. He described a plan to remove the building and the oil tank, create roughly 40 parking spaces, add landscaping and a small pocket park, and make the space usable for weekend programming such as food trucks. “We would then be able to repurpose the land, which would make it available for some grant money that's related to remediation of soil,” Lupo said.

Residents and council discussed pedestrian and bicycle access. A member of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Alliance asked why specific language about Wallace Road improvements and bicycle/pedestrian access had been removed from ordinance text; the mayor and parking-authority representatives said the ordinance wording was tailored to allow the Authority to apply for remediation grants and that detailed pedestrian/bicycle improvements would be addressed through site-plan review and county coordination for the adjacent bridge and roadway.

Council adopted related zoning amendments for the Princeton Junction redevelopment plan (ordinances 2025‑06 and 2025‑07) by roll-call vote. The zoning change was followed on the consent agenda by other project resolutions; the parking authority said it will proceed with grant applications (the meeting noted the remediation/grant application deadline of July 1) and return to the Township planning board with site-specific designs that will address sidewalks, lighting and pedestrian access.

Ending: Council, parking authority and residents agreed the site cleanup is a high priority; engineering, planning and grant work are next steps. Detailed design and any changes to public-right-of-way access will be reviewed by the planning board and relevant county agencies prior to construction.