Normalizing car-lite living during college years
Universities play a major role in the habits (good & bad) of the soon-to-be graduates.
Students take their higher education experiences with them into communities large and small. Campus life is an excellent time to establish good commuting habits that reduce future purchases of personal vehicles.
The real and perceived need for personal cars on campus introduces traffic congestion, traffic crashes, parking demand, and fiscal burdens to expand car-oriented infrastructure.
Shared transportation fleets improve campus mobility, reduce traffic congestion, and reduce the need for parking structures. So much of the things that work sound too good to be true because of our limited beliefs.
Colleges and universities with “libraries” of shared mobility devices (bicycles, electric scooters, electric vehicles, etc.) give students, staff, and faculty access to transportation options without the expense and burden of maintaining personal automobiles on campus.
These types of programs can help reduce campus parking and traffic nightmares, while normalizing a car-lite lifestyle among impressionable students.
What’s holding back campuses?
Personal car ownership has the allure of freedom, giving young people the ability to drive anywhere at a moment’s notice. The reality of campus life is that most trips are less than a few miles. The proliferation of single occupant vehicles in the U.S. has led to universities implementing Transportation Demand Management (TDM) programs to reduce the amount of car traffic and car storage. Campus TDM efforts are intended to expand mobility options without expanding concrete and asphalt infrastructure.
Public Health and Safety
Car crashes are the number one cause of accidental death among college students. The combination of high foot traffic and high vehicle traffic make crashes all too likely. Alcohol, cell phones, inexperienced drivers, and diverse driving experiences are recipes for disaster on campus.
Besides the individual safety issues of car crashes, heavy traffic creates an excessive amount of emissions that harm drivers even when the windows are rolled up. Medical studies have long documented the more time people spend in and near automobiles, the more their body deteriorates.
Car Traffic and Parking
Planning and designing campuses for car traffic only increases car traffic. Campuses get new congestion in four ways:
Nearby traffic with or without a school,
Faculty and staff as they travel to and from work,
Student commuters, and
Student internal campus trips.
The first takes longer to solve, but the other three are all directly addressable right now.
Road widening projects and parking garage expansions signal to students that personal vehicles are encouraged. The more car lanes are constructed, the more people choose to drive those routes. The more parking garages are expanded, the more people choose to drive.
It’s completely normal for universities to complain about traffic and parking, only to induce more traffic and parking hassles.
Car Infrastructure
Car-oriented infrastructure is a financial burden. Parking garages are enormous expenses that are rarely questioned, although they often stand in defiance of campus goals of environmental and financial stewardship.
A typical campus garage holds about 400 cars and costs $30,000 per parking space. The $12 million price tag is a perceived necessity, but a mindset shift can save money while supporting administrative priorities.
One car parking space can hold about 10 bicycles. Repurposing parking spaces within an existing garage is a low-cost way to reduce single-occupant traffic. This tactic should be considered in addition to covered parking adjacent to campus buildings, and not as a replacement.
Bike-friendly infrastructure encourages more bicycling. Car-friendly infrastructure discourages bicycling. A university or college’s budget should align with its stewardship and TDM goals.
What can propel universities forward?
Bike Share
Researchers continue to publish empirical evidence that bike share has profound positive impacts on communities. Riding a bike as transportation for short trips improves mental and physical health, protects people from car crashes, reduces emissions, and saves money.
Students often buy cheap bicycles to use on campus, only to leave them behind after graduation. Campus parking and transportation departments struggle with the time and expense to collect and dispose of abandoned bikes. Some mid-sized universities reported spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars per year. One school administrator I spoke with estimated spending over $20,000 in staff time to impound personal bikes.
An organized bike share program would give students access to a library of bikes positioned at convenient hubs throughout campus. This could immediately and dramatically reduce the number of abandoned personal bicycles.
Bike share programs can be funded by the university or other like-minded partners, or through user fees. Many campuses choose to provide bike share as a free amenity to help students establish the lasting habit of choosing the safe, healthy, and most efficient form of urban transport.
Scooter Share
Electric scooters have quickly grown in popularity across the country as a low-cost option for short trips. Scooter share users frequently connect from home or work to mass transit. On a college campus, scooters are a great choice for trips that are longer than a comfortable walk, but still under a few miles.
Scooter sharing is a relatively new phenomenon in the U.S., but it’s generally a user-pay business model. A college campus should be involved in the planning of parking hubs for scooters (ideally located at bike share hubs).
Ride Share
Carpooling has been around almost as long as personal vehicles. Several people ride in a single vehicle, rather than each driving personal cars. Ride sharing programs vary widely from one community to another.
Campus ride share operates as a form of micro-transit to supplement existing local or campus bus service. A small fleet of electric vehicles that look like glorified golf carts can be used to give fixed route or on-demand rides across campus. Sometimes you just don’t want to ruin an amazing hair day.
So what?
The decision-making part of the brain isn’t even fully developed until around 25 years old, so it’s a disaster when we push students into the driver’s seat of high-powered automobiles. How great would it be to make good habits easy for them?
Encourage universities to normalize car-lite behavior any way you can. Professors you know, administrators you meet on school trips with your kids, and friends who have kids that are planning to attend college.
“What was your college experience?”
“Realizing I didn’t need to buy a car after all.”
One thing I don't see mentioned here is building housing on or near campus. I personally was able to live on campus, and walked everywhere in college. That shaped my desire post-college to move somewhere walkable. I live in a college town now and there isn't enough housing near campus, so some kids drive from further away. Bike share is great, but walkable proximity is even better!
No kidding about the mind not fully developed especially for "us" males. We were visiting Bloomington IN home of IU and sure enough, off on the side roads near the campus what do we see (endangering us and others)...that one dude (and his friends all along for the ride) "punching it" in that Porche SUV his 'rents bought him. Literally flying down a road going waaaaay too fast and giving up all control over the situation....