It is time for Colgate University to close the hill to cars.
There are a number of reasons why this change would not only be enormously beneficial, but also is necessary to improve Colgate’s campus. This simple policy change would accelerate progress toward two of the four pillars of the lauded Third Century Plan. It would move Colgate closer to its sustainability goals, improve student safety for those traveling both in and outside of vehicles and free up more prime land on campus for development.
As an institution, Colgate claims to take environmental and climate action seriously. In some ways, Colgate has followed through on this claim. For example, Colgate was the first higher education institution in New York State to become carbon neutral, a goal achieved through a mix of slashing carbon emissions on campus and investing in off campus carbon offsets. But, I believe that Colgate has largely not tackled the amount of carbon emitted by students each day.
Now, the University has a chance to make more progress.
When it comes to environmental action, there is no single greater lifestyle change Americans can make than to ditch their automobiles. Transportation is the single greatest use of carbon in the United States and car transportation makes up the largest portion of the sector.
The vast majority of carbon emissions from driving come from short trips, like the type of trips that students undertake each day when they drive from the townhouses or the apartments to “the gap” between Lathrop and Lawrence Halls. Eliminating each of these trips would be a boon for the climate and for the institution’s sustainability bona fides.
When it comes to safety, there are yet more benefits. Colgate students are many things: they are strong athletes and accomplished students. They have much to be proud of inside and outside the classroom. They are not, however, careful drivers, as anyone who has ever attempted to cross College Street at willow path or Alumni Drive at the Persson crosswalk can attest.
Adding this well-known anecdote to the data on the relatively extreme danger of car travel and it is exceedingly clear. Eliminating car travel up the hill would make all students — those who drive, those who walk and those who use the Colgate Shuttle and other transportation modes — much safer.
With the sudden lack of cars up the hill, Colgate would solve an additional, impending problem facing the University: its increasing shortage of land. The Third Century Plan and the last twenty years more broadly have brought a wave of new development to Colgate. The construction of Benton, Bernstein, Burke and Pinchin Halls and the Ho Science Center as well as the Olin Hall expansion were completed in the past two decades. They are certainly valuable additions to the campus, but they have also been a drain on Colgate’s supply of open space. Removing cars from the Colgate campus helps alleviate this problem.
In a car-free Colgate (at least up the hill), the Alumni and Lathrop parking lots could be redeveloped for the next generation of new buildings, whether they be academic, residential or something else entirely. Regardless of what was built, it would surely be more enriching to the student experience and an improvement to the campus and its environs when compared to the parking lots that exist now, two of the pillars of the Third Century Plan.
Clearly, this change would be significant. It could not be pursued overnight and it would take substantial planning and significant investment from the university. But that planning and investment would be worth it.
Banning car travel up the hill during weekdays would disrupt the commutes of students, faculty and staff. Luckily, there are multiple avenues the University can pursue to ease the pain. It is already necessary for the school to invest more heavily in the Colgate Shuttle system and would become doubly so if cars were banned up the hill.
Improving headways at peak hours would increase student ridership and make car journeys less necessary. Creating new routes to assist faculty and staff in their commutes would be a necessity, including to and from commuter parking lots, as would the creation of a Broad Street-specific route that better meets students’ non-class related transportation needs.
The full elimination of personal transportation and its replacement with the Colgate Shuttle, even a more comprehensive one, is not desirable nor is it possible. To fill the gap, Colgate should increase its investment in the existing Green Bikes Program, transitioning to a full bikeshare program, similar to the very popular Citi Bike program in New York City or the Blue Bikes program in metro Boston.
Students could swipe ’Gate Cards to check out a bike for their trips to class, the grocery store, into town or to Huntington Gymnasium, and on cold days, they could hop on the heated, newly frequent and increasingly reliable Colgate shuttle.
A better, greener, safer world is possible. And it can start right here in Hamilton.
