I hate car-dependent culture, and I recognize that’s a real privilege. I grew up in Cambridge, MA, a semi-urban city with infrastructure that enabled me to bike to middle and high school almost every day. When it was too cold or rainy, or when I just wasn’t up for it, I took a public bus that dropped me off at my school’s doorstep. I’ve also spent seven summers — or about two years of my life — at an overnight camp in Vermont, where some 800 campers and staff live almost entirely off the land and have a negligible carbon footprint. When I first arrived at Oberlin in 2021, I was shocked at how seemingly impossible it was to get anywhere without a car. These experiences have all motivated me to major in Environmental Studies, with a concentration in Urban Planning. With that being said, I disagree with Walter Moak’s recently published opinion (“Oberlin College Shouldn’t Encourage Car Culture,” The Oberlin Review, Sept. 22, 2023).
It’s undoubtedly true that car-dependent infrastructure is destroying our planet and our wellbeing, and I agree that the last thing anybody wants is more parking lots. However, I believe that this letter falls short in considering the complex systems at play in combating car dependency from an institutional perspective.
Constructing a new 120,000 square foot dorm and a 201-space parking lot might not look so good at first glance, but it really is. The dorm will be mostly four-person suites, featuring the same amenities and privacies offered by Village Housing. Instead of groups of 12 students each sharing their own boiler and water systems, over 370 students will live off of Oberlin’s singular energy grid. That’s awesome. And it has taken an immense amount of logistical and financial planning to pull off. As Off-campus Housing will be phased out and re-allocated to the local community, those students who would have had a house will need a new place to park their cars, which is why 45 additional parking spots are being added to the Woodland Street parking lot. For those who don’t know, a student and staff parking lot previously existed in the space where the new dorm is now being built, so this parking lot is really more of an accommodating expansion rather than a new construction.
The Sustainable Infrastructure Program is, at its core, an attempt to eliminate individuals consuming an unnecessary amount of natural resources, which could also be described as a local occurrence of the ‘tragedy of the commons.’ It should be noted that the Woodland Street Dorm is not technically part of the SIP, but representative of similar long-term goals. Cars on campus are also resources that aren’t shared in large numbers, which is a problem. So why bring back the Woodland Street parking lot at all if Oberlin is creating new on-campus housing solutions? Isn’t it a bit hypocritical that Oberlin, a school focused on environmentalism, is encouraging students to own cars?
No, it’s not hypocritical, and they’re not encouraging car ownership. They’re simply accounting for the fact that students and staff still need cars during this transitional phase.
Oberlin students travel a lot. If you need to get out of town without owning a car, you can rent one of three electric vehicles offered by the College or take the ObieExpress. If you’d like to go somewhere outside of Cleveland on your own time, then the ObieExpress is off the table. If the EVs are taken, or if you need to go somewhere quite far or overnight, you’re really out of luck. Reducing parking minimums and limiting student parking availability without providing alternative methods of transportation will only prevent students from going where they need to go. Public transportation needs sufficient demand, and although the demand is there, Oberlin likely won’t be investing in more buses or EVs while a lot of their sustainability funds are still tied up in the Sustainable Infrastructure Program.
If we had a truly sizable fleet of EVs, for instance, that would surely eliminate the need for students to have cars on campus. However, this would be another massive undertaking by the College — though one that hopefully happens sooner rather than later. It’s not realistic to ask the College to also solve car dependency while they are already in the process of building an eco-friendly dorm.
Additionally, there are around 450 faculty and staff in the College and Conservatory, and the majority of them don’t live in Oberlin proper. This figure does not include maintenance, administration, food workers, or anyone else employed by the College. Oberlin, like any other small town in America, has been forced to adapt to the car revolution. A lifestyle free of cars is fantasy for most Americans living in an environment similar to that of Lorain County. If you live in Elyria, for instance, it is not currently within reason to not own a car if you have to commute to Oberlin. As a result, as much as it pains me to say, staff parking isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
While Oberlin itself is a very walkable and bikeable city, it is situated in a larger region which is not — a region that lacks adequate public transportation. As many readers may know, the Oberlin bike path used to be a railway connecting the city to Kipton, Elyria, and eventually Cleveland. In 1898, Ohio had a rail network as complex and widespread as today’s highway network. If we had a modern version of Ohio’s historic rail network, maybe we wouldn’t need cars, period. But this is of course a much bigger issue that will require dedicated time and effort to solve.
We shouldn’t be faulting the College for trying to meet the current transportative needs of a wide array of demographics. Fighting climate change as a whole doesn’t mean tackling every issue at once; it will take time, and that’s okay. Instead of complaining about everything Oberlin isn’t doing, what if we took just one moment to appreciate all the progress being made?
