This April 1, the Editorial Board wanted to offer some ideas on how to reenvision our stale campus in a way that feels a little more fresh. To see the other proposal in this series click here.
Georgetown currently neglects many of its students’ needs, such as the need for norovirus-free food, and the need for mold-free housing. But Georgetown has long neglected one need over all the others: our need for speed.
Georgetown has long stifled our inalienable right to cars. This inhibition on cars, a proud symbol of individualism, can only be described as unamerican, unpatriotic, and uncool. And there is only one conceivable solution. We must remove all of the oppressive restrictions that Georgetown puts on driving cars on campus such as the “safety” bollards or the banishment of all cars to the dank, dark “Southwest Garage,” and replace them with new car-friendly infrastructure.
Car Barn, once an actual barn for horse-drawn carriages has now begun to house much less savory creatures: SFS students. It should return to its original purpose, as a four story parking garage. We care so much about restoring its former glory that we wrote a poem.
Core Beliefs
Crappy Behemoth Can Become Car Barn
Craving Before, Coping Badly
Come Back, Car Barn, Come Back
Still, we spend far too much time writing poetry when we could be doing donuts around Dahlgren Quad. No longer. We must think big. We must change the way that we think about our campus.
You may be thinking, “What about the GUTS buses? Those are pretty convenient.” In reality, however, that’s part of the problem: The free and frequent GUTS buses bully students out of the need for a car, and this cannot stand. While not removing the public transportation altogether, it is our American duty to make sure that it is as inefficient and confusing as possible. First, we will be selling all of the current buses for scrap metal and instead install Jeep Wranglers as the new GUTS system (roofs off of course). And forget 20 miles a gallon, we’ll tune those boys up to get 20 gallons a mile. Furthermore, the dropoff point and pickup points will change each day based on whether Jack sees his shadow or not, but don’t worry—this will not be a notable change. In order to ensure timeliness, the Wranglers will not stop to let students off. Instead, all students will learn about our proposed “drop and roll system” which will be taught at the Tom M. Cruise Academy for Ridiculous Stunts (CARS, which will promptly replace the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service).
To streamline our broken transportation system, we first propose the creation of an above-ground super highway from Car Barn to St. Mary’s. Stretching over Healy Lawn, the magnificent monument to our commitment to our student commuters will provide shade—not to the pedestrians trudging to class across the lawn, but instead to the off ramp that will replace the Lawn. But how will we deal with overcrowding and traffic on this super highway? Well, we have done our usual due diligence and there is actually no legal limit to the amount of lanes that we can build. We propose a scaling system of one new lane for every 100 students who go here. Let’s layer this up like lasagna.
But where will everyone park, the campus is only so big? There is no shortage of buildings that can be torn down to make room for more parking spaces and roads. The first to change will be Leo O’Donovan Dining Hall. You may ask, where will I eat? We will convert Leo’s into a drive-through and you can eat like an adult: alone in your car. Joseph Mark Lauinger Library? Study in your car. New South? In fact, you can actually make equally bad lifestyle choices from the comfort of your 2016 Ford Fusion, and probably be more comfortable.
We will also be converting the MSB building into a Carvana car vending machine. The design is very human and will be a good use of the atrium’s surplus glass.
Now many might object—“How will pedestrians get anywhere on campus safely? Wouldn’t cars everywhere be dangerous?” No, and here’s why. If everyone is in a car, no one will ever be a pedestrian, so no sweat!
“But what if I don’t have a car?”
Thank you and Kachow.
Thanks to the writers at the voice for pointing out this urgent problem! I have been living on campus for three years now and it’s utterly unacceptable that I don’t have my own space to park my Ford F-650 SD Gas Pro Loader with 7.3L 2V DEVCT NA FPI V8 engine producing over 300 horsepower and 468 lbs.-ft of torque. If the makers of the U.S. Constitution didn’t want every American to drive a gigantic freedom wagon to liberate the environment from the shackles of existence, why did Paul Revere make his legendary ride on a horse, the neolithic antecedent of the sports utility vehicle?
I wish the ed board had addressed the other gripping problem of housing on campus, though. I think it’s ridiculous that we, as patriotic God-loving students, have to live in communist apartment blocks like “Kennedy” and “Harbin” (interesting… Kennedy, named after a known family of COMMUNIST lovers and Harbin, which alludes to the HARBINger of the revolution, V.I. Lenin…). If we want to provide affordable, humane housing to every student on campus, we should bulldoze these socialist dormitories and replace them with three-story single family housing in cul-de-sacs for EVERY student! We can solve the crowding issue and the parking issue in one fell swoop! We will need some extra space but that can easily be done by paving over the ugly townhouses and brick roads in Georgetown. It would be nice to destroy the shopping district too, it’s carphobic and doesn’t have any of the stores we actually need, like a gigantic Walmart with a parking lot three times its size. I hope the President’s office will listen, and again, great editorial you guys :)