With a campus this nice, why drive?

Everyone knows there are a lot of dumb ways to break the law. There are also a lot of dumb ways to blow money, along with lots of ways to hurt others and the environment. But what if I told you there was a way to do all of the above at once?

Actually, you’re probably already quite familiar with this magic bullet of idiocy. Have you ever driven down 10th Street? Keep in mind I’m using the term “driving” quite loosely to refer to the brief acceleration that occurs in the 2-milisecond pause between the light turning green and the freshman pedestrian bolting in front of your tricked-out Chevy.

Well, guess what? Little freshman-in-the-headlights is just trying to get to class, and like it or not, he is fully within his rights to seek passage across the street, a la Moses splitting the seas. Our campus belongs to him, not to our cars.

Yet we continue to drive and to speed, despite the fact that both are impractical, and that getting to the next red light a little faster does nothing to change the fact that we will, inevitably, end up stopping at it. We drive – and we drive irrationally – which risks having run-ins with the law, wearing down our engines, burning more fuel and releasing more pollution into the air and incurring the wrath of all the pedestrians we almost flatten.

Sure, maybe we’ll make a light or two we wouldn’t have when cruising within the limits of the law, but does an extra 40 seconds really merit risking all of the above?
Still, if you’re running late for class, do you really have a choice? Speeding up and weaving in and out of traffic sometimes seem like the only hope of ever actually getting there. But now imagine if all the drivers on the road thought that way. You’d have a lot of erratic driving, no one would get anywhere on time, and you’d probably end up rear-ended, side-swiped and just pissed off by the time you darted through the door of ballroom dancing class.

Every high-horsepower vehicle brought to campus ironically just slows everybody down. Bloomington was not built for SUVs. Older halls such as Kirkwood and Maxwell can’t just be picked up and moved so we can build an eight-lane highway.
Part of the beauty of campus is its inconvenience. In light of elevated environmental concerns, rising fuel prices and a continued increase in traffic fatalities, making driving less attractive is becoming a laborious task for many city planners. Luckily for us in Bloomington, we already have that taken care of.

So when you do hop in your car to take a spin around campus, don’t expect the going to be easy, and don’t be surprised if you look out your window and find the elderly on foot progressing faster than you are. But remember that your own personal road rage and speeding are no issue if you take the bus, ride your bike or walk. We’re a pedestrian campus, and no amount of horsepower will change that. Save yourself the frustration – and the resultant coronary – and leave the car at home.