I arrived on two wheels at the WeShop parking lot. With me were a pen, paper, and a stopwatch. On me were a helmet, reflective sash, and leg clip. My mission: to track the on-campus drivers-how many, and where they come from.
4:22 p.m. Agent 7A reports to Weshop parking lot. The instructions given are to wait for OCD 1 (on-campus driver numero un). 4:23 still waiting. 4:23:30 Agent 7A spots OCD 1. 4:24 OCD 1 appears to be in too great a hurry for the dashing agent to pursue. 4:25 OCD 2 appears. Confirmed by anonymous source as In-town resident 009. Agent 7A spared perilous pursuit down Cross Street. It seems almost a rite of passage at this here school that moving up through the class ranks means not only a wave good-bye to Mocon, Foss Hill or the Butt, and a cheers to student groups and FYIs, but also a sizable bon voyage to one's own two feet.
"If only they would replace these sidewalks with people movers, then I would have you amputated," boy says to feet.
Maybe it's that we want to relive those vivid, concentrated moments of glee in high school, when we finally broke free from our bondage and passed the driver's exam (yah, for some students from our densest urban areas, this point is indeed irrelevant, but read on).
No more bus rides. No more bike rides. No more car rides from parent. Just pure freedom. How beautiful it was. So beautiful we probably can't recreate the moment. But trying will do.4:28 Agent 7A waiting. Lot is full. Boy illegally parks. 4:29 OCD spotted. Green Saab. The agent dashingly adjusts reflective sash, turns on tail-light, and proceeds at gear 18 to follow OCD 2. Frosh indeed react incredulously when they are told upon WesArrival that, along with WESCREW, WESWOMEN, WESXC, WESJAC, WESTRAIGHT&PERSECUTED, and WESTONECOLDSOBER, there are also the WESONCAMPUSDRIVERS. Yet so often somewhere along the way, in that beautiful blossoming from frosh to sophomore-and sometimes in blossoming late (sophomore to junior)-the initial disbelief is replaced by smiles.
After all, together we graduate from Foss Hill or Butterfield and move elsewhere, to distant lands. Earth House, HiRise, Psi-U, Pearl Street, Claptrap House, In-town. Blame it on urban planning for making HiRise so distant from WeShop. In-town so distant from Olin. Washington Street so distant from everything. We have to drive because stuff is so far away, and we all have tight schedules and budgets.
And so it goes. Home Avenue to the CFA. The CFA to Fisk. Clark to Mocon. DKE to Fisk. Weshop to HiRise. HiRise to Claptrap House. So much distance. So little time. So many hoots to experience.
But ponder this snappy fact:
Driving from the Science Tower to the CFA will cost a WESTUDENT 3 minutes and 28 seconds of productivity. Biking from the Science Tower to the CFA will cost the student 2 minutes and 41 seconds. 4:37 Agent 7A returns, unsuccessful-due to the incredibly convenient agility and speed of the automobile that outpaces the biker or walker. 4:38 Waiting again. 4:40 to 4:41 Five OCDs drive by on Church St. 4:43 OCD 3 appears. Agent 7A confirms 3 as HiRise resident, but nonetheless heads out for a most authentic mission impossible. 4:45 OCD 3 arrives at campus center for rest stop on trek home to Hirise. Indeed, biking on campus can be quicker than driving; and indeed there are always those instances where driving is quicker. But regardless of which is quicker, the truth is that on-campus driving is ass. Plain and simple. I'm going to have to say it: Cars are assy. Just plain assy. Do we really want an assy campus? Indeed not.
Of course, if we are going to understand the full implications of on-campus driving we must begin to see ourselves as contributors not only to an assy campus but to an assy world. Cars collectively are helping to wage a war of attrition on the stability of our global climate. Some cats call it global warming. Accurate, but maybe not ominous enough.
Aside from the fact that the past 10 months have been the warmest ever recorded (and don't try any El Nino claptrappy arguments; do the logic: El Nino makes global temperatures warmer than normal, but not record-breaking; something else is going on), we have been seeing a sharp increase in droughts, flooding, the range of infectious diseases, and icky bug populations, among other portentous bon bons.
Cars collectively inundate our atmosphere with carbon dioxide, which causes the trapping of too much heat from the sun. The result is warmer ground temperatures and a consequent speeding up of the water cycleówater evaporates more quickly on the ground, and falls more quickly from the sky. The result is a greater frequency and intensity of precipitation events such as flooding, droughts and hurricanes. 4:50 Agent 7A arrives back at WeShop parking lot. 4:50:30 HiRise resident/OCD 3 who drove to campus center returns to Weshop in car. 4:51 OCD 4 spotted. Agent 7A gears up and heads out. Consider this potty-mouth metaphor: "Think of cars as butts and bikes as hands that can create." Now, keep the image in your head for a moment. Out of the collective butt that is known as cars come carbon monoxide (cuts off oxygen flow to the brain, makes you stupid, or dead, in larger quantities), particulate matter (lodges in your lungs, inhibits breathing), volatile organic compounds (same thing), nitrogen oxides (reacts with sunlight to produce ground-level ozone, which attacks your lungs and thus inhibits breathing), and carbon dioxide (disrupts climate).
Ninety percent of Connecticut residents breathe air that fails to comply with federal clean air standards. That means WesAir too. Certainly the case against on-campus driving would be all too compelling if this filthy air could be traced solely to the WESONCAMPUSDRIVERS. But let's not kid ourselves to death, now; it can't.
We Wesleyan folk who currently oppose on-campus driving make no claims that it is the root cause of our environmental ills. But we would like to fancy the four-wheeled on-campus trek-taking as a root of environmental trashiness. View the dilemma trans-university-ally: Wesleyan is part of a crew of colleges and universities nationwide whose students drive over campus. Collectively, we are contributing to global warming and air pollution, and, above all, we are nurturing and perpetuating an all too pervasive, sorry notion: travel is best and must be done on four wheels.
Here we have this glorious opportunity to live car-free (some for the first time)-a small campus that is bikeable and walkable-and we are choosing the ass route. The implication is that if we are unwilling to use our two feet or our two wheels here, then undoubtedly we will be even more unwilling at home, in our cities, our suburbs, and towns.
We are thus agents in perpetuating autocentricity and its accompanying ills.
4:54 OCD arrives at HiRise parking lot. 4:55 Must bike up hill again back to WeShop parking lot. 4:56 Agent 7A is greeted by a comrade. Converse. 5:02 At parking lot again. 5:03 Adjust posture. Four OCDs pass by. 5:05 OCDs arrive (Confirmed residents of house on 200 block of Church St.). 5:06 OCD spotted (Confirmed LoRise residents). Oh, but the revolutionary movement has arrived. Yes, it goes by the name of SOOD Not Bombs. For the inquiring mind, SOOD stands for Students Opposing On-campus Driving. (The funny thing is that there is already an organization called Food Not Bombs, and there is a Wesleyan student named Erica Sood. . . ha ha. funny.) SOOD Not Bombs is committed to ridding this campus of WESONCAMPUSDRIVERS except for cases when heavy objects and emergencies are involved.
Accompanying all public actions that SOOD conducts is the necessary SOOD Not Bombs Challenge. The challenge is not simply to sign one's name below the pledge that s/he will not drive on campus, but to accept that challenge, to think critically about it and examine how one can cut back and ultimately eliminate the car from his/her campus lifestyle.
Already there are over 800 folks taking the challenge. Among those who have dared to take the challenge: the ferocious Dan Engler '99, the bold Caitlin Dougherty '01, the dashing Edward Hong '99, and the mesmerizing Sarah Norr '02. And the numbers are set to grow as SOOD Not Bombs conducts more public actions, and as more and more signers tell their friends and comrades.
Of course, the message of SOOD Not Bombs is not all negative and no positive. Sure, cars are crap. But biking is beautiful. So are other forms of car-free transportation. Thus in proper guerilla SOOD Not Bombs fashion, we sponsored an event during Cars Are Bad week: the scantily clad bike ride, the dynamic climax to a ruckus-filled week. We paraded in front of the campus center, and raided Mocon, and showed everyone on campus why biking is just so irresistably beautiful.
Next stop: working with Middletown urban planners to get bike lanes in the city, and rail connections to and from Middletown. The struggle continues, with so many targets to hit. And the struggle is endlessly fueled by what we know to be true: on-campus driving is assy.
5:09 OCD spotted. Can't get on bike in time. Cars are fast and convenient. 5:10 Need beeswax. 5:11 OCD spotted (Agent 7A talking to friend, can't move). 5:13 OCD spotted. The agent heads out. Driver and passenger know that they are being followed. 5:17 After a difficult chase OCD confirmed as residents of 356 Washington. 5:21 Weshop parking lot. Mission completed. Agent exhausted. 5:22 Enter Weshop to look for rewards for myself-string cheese, and lox, baby. 
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