"Although we used Riverside as the specific focus of our study," said Darius Sollohub, the MIP program's Associate Director, "we plan to use our findings to develop some general rules of thumb about the use of light rail in providing transportation support to communities."

The modeling project is a new approach to help towns maximize the benefits of transit access by planning the areas around stations. The state advocates the concept and launched a "Transit Village Program" in March 1999 to restore stations to their historical role, enhance investment in urban areas and promote community leadership. Communities that create Transit Villages are given priority consideration for funding from NJDOT's Local Aid for Centers program, the Transportation Enhancements program, and Bicycle and Pedestrian projects. Five communities have started implementing Transit Village initiatives, including Morristown, Pleasantville, Rutherford, South Amboy and South Orange.

According to NJDOT Commissioner James Weinstein, "Communities are the bedrock of our state, and promoting programs that center on our communities must always remain our priority. The NJIT study provides an example of best practices for towns to follow in developing Transit Village initiatives across New Jersey."

Riverside was the "perfect small town" for the study, says Sollohub, because of its history as a working class company town that thrived in the 1920's and declined in the early 1950's when the major employer, the Keystone Watchcase Company, went out of business. As a result, Sollohub says, the town became somewhat isolated from major centers of economic activity where jobs and income are generated. "A light rail system offers many benefits but one of the most important is to re-connect towns like Riverside with the regional economy through access to jobs in Trenton, Camden and Philadelphia," he notes.

NJIT's model of Riverside involved two phases. In the first phase the students inventoried local conditions and modeled the area around the rail line to demonstrate three different scenarios for creating a transit village. One model has a waterfront residential area and regional sports facilities. Another scenario builds around a craft industry in the Watchcase Factory building, with a fishing pier for recreation, as well as essential services like a supermarket and day care center. The third model focuses commercial development along the rail line.

The models were presented to representatives from the town at a meeting hosted by Burlington County, and reviewed by local government agencies. Taking their responses into account, in the second phase students used concepts and features from each model to develop a comprehensive urban design proposal. The proposal includes the renovation and reuse of the Watchcase Factory building for residential apartments and various commercial uses such as craft and industry workshops, galleries and professional offices. It also recommends creating a sequence of public places including a town square, a pedestrian avenue and a public park. In addition, a pedestrian-friendly street layout and parking provisions are also discussed.

The recently released Riverside Transit Village Project Report details the findings from both phases of the study. This information will be provided to NJDOT in both hard copy and multimedia format ready for use on a Web site or CD-ROM for other communities seeking solutions to transportation-related development issues.

According to Mark Remsa, Principal Planner, Burlington County Office of Land Use Planning, after NJIT faculty and students formally present the study findings at a meeting of County Freeholders, the Riverside Township Committee will select key recommendations to incorporate into the town's redevelopment plan. "We also plan to leverage NJIT's work in conducting further development studies, applying for state funding and attracting private sector investment," he says.

MIP is the only interdisciplinary, post-professional program in North America designed to produce professionals capable of acting across the spectrum of disciplines involved in infrastructure development. Through a curriculum that concentrates on comprehensive infrastructure planning and design, students with previous degrees in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and civil or environmental engineering combine their skills to help plan more livable and efficient urban environments.

Notes Sollohub, "The MIP program bridges the world of the engineer and the world of the architect. We speak the engineer's language in dealing with issues such as transportation and environment, and the architect's language for issues such as design and the use of living spaces." The NJSOA uses the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area as a laboratory where students are often called-upon to work with communities on reality-based design issues.

Sollohub says he hopes to attract other projects that can benefit from the diversity of skills available in the MIP program. "In today's construction world projects need to consider not only design and structural integrity, but also environmental, social and other quality of life issues. Our program is equipped to help deal with them all."

NJIT is a public research university enrolling over 8,200 bachelor's, master's and doctoral students in 80 degree programs through its five colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, the School of Management and the Albert Dorman Honors College. Research initiatives include manufacturing, microelectronics, multimedia, transportation, computer science, solar astrophysics, environmental engineering and science, and architecture and building science.

Yahoo! Internet Life magazine has ranked NJIT "America's most wired public university" for three consecutive years, U.S. News and World Report's 1999 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT among the nation's top universities, and Money magazine's most recent issue of Best College Buys rated NJIT as the sixth best value among U.S. science and technology schools and among the top 100 overall. In September 1999, Mademoiselle ranked NJIT as the second most Internet-connected university in the nation.

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