This, to me, is one of the worst concessions the university made in the Campus Plan agreements. When I was a senior, I was lucky enough to have a driveway in Burleith to house my car, but for students living in West Georgetown, this will no longer be an option. I used my car to drive home for holidays – it was much cheaper than airfare and easier on my parents. There are countless reasons why students bring cars to campus, and eliminating this possibility outright is overly harsh. Plus, let’s be real, the lines of cars trying to get out of Georgetown to M St every morning to go to work aren’t students, and they’re the ones causing the congestion. Use buses, people.

There’s no reason to have a car as an undergrad. Use buses, students. Plus you now have Zipcar and Bikeshare and other creative alternatives. Not to mention a brand new Safeway.

And had you actually followed the law (changing your residency and registering your car in DC) and considered the costs of having that car (the additional rent you paid for that parking spot alone), my guess is that a plane or train ticket starts to look a little cheaper.

If any Georgetown undergraduate/graduate rents a house off campus in Georgetown, Burleith, Foxhall, or anywhere else, they are as entitled as any other non-student resident to have a car and park it where they live.

I think this is a great idea. Not having a car in DC really immerses you more into the school and community.

Personally I feel undergrads don’t truly need to bring a car to campus, but straight up banning them is idiotic

I agree, much like living in a real house off campus immerses you more into the community. Wait…

@Dave – actually yes, I was one of those undergrads who actually registered my car in DC, and yes, it was still cheaper to do that than it would have been to fly home as frequently as I had to for personal reasons. And don’t worry, I took a bus every time I was traveling within the city rather than outside of it.

The point is – putting an all-out ban on students having cars is, to quote @Nevada, idiotic. There are any number of reasons why a student might need a car for their own lifestyle (is your internship located east of the Anacostia River in a non-Metro-served location? Well, sucks for you) and to declare that thousands of students should be limited in that way will be a huge deterrent to students considering Georgetown as an option for school.

There are better ways to decrease congestion in the neighborhood. Lobby CaBi to bring more stations to Georgetown, educate students about how to use CaBi and how to use the bus systems (it boggles my brain that so many students don’t know how to use the D6 or G2), make GUTS bus routes more frequent and convenient, provide free helmets to students who want a CaBi membership, yada yada yada. Banning a lifestyle choice entirely isn’t the answer.

My dream car: Start down low with a 350 cube, three and a quarter horsepower, 4-speed, 4:10 gears, ten coats of competition orange, hand-rubbed lacquer with a huplane manifold……full fuckin’ race cams. Whoo

I’m a med student. Having a car is pretty much a requirement to get to and from hospital rotations. What’s gonna be the deal for us? Are we going to be “actively discouraged” as well?

This mainly effects the undergraduate population. In addition, the fact that “graduate students” wasn’t really emphasized in the campus plan compared to undergrads means that its not really realistic of the neighborhood population to ban that population from using the car (to think, banning a 28 year old from parking a car just because he takes classes at Georgetown).

Additionally, the Med school would probably recognize this issue and offer parking to students who don’t have off-street parking at their residence. They have like 3 garages anyways.

You couldn’t pay me to own a car in this city. Nonetheless, like Nevada said, not even giving the option is tyrannical. Dave’s suggestion to use CaBi and ZipCar apply just as much to the residents, but even an alternative transit advocate like me recognizes they aren’t the answer to everybody.

Furthermore Dave, your assumption that students don’t follow the law is not only wrong in this case, but also insulting. Given Georgetown is either the only or one of the only ANC’s in the city to specifically ban reciprocity permits when everywhere else in the city doesn’t have a problem with it, things are hard enough for students without being assumed to be in violation of the law.

There’s no legal difference between banning a 21 year old from parking a car and banning a 28 year old from parking a car. To say there is would qualify as discrimination on account of age, which is definitely illegal.

What happens to the nursing majors who need cars to get to public health clinics and hospitals around DC, MD, and VA at 4:30 in the morning? Is the NHS planning on changing clinical schedules to deal with the impossibility of getting to clinicals on time? Or is the university allowing those students to have cars in order to get to their rotations?

This is an example of “the university” making a decision based on their interpretation of a student without input from actual students who stand to be impacted by such policies.

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