Last week I sat through interviews to select a master-plan consultant for a mid-size university. The university has grown steadily the last 10 years, and is seeking to update its master plan. We are advising the university (and its selection committee) on transportation, infrastructure, and stormwater issues.

Each of the firms was highly qualified and gave a very good presentation. There were common threads: All sought to be sustainable in their approach; all focused on place-making and on spaces for socializing and exchanging ideas; all were visionary and supported the mission of the university. The planning process was to be participatory and inclusive. The presentation materials were seductive. One firm presented sepia-toned plans supported by gauzy watercolor vignettes representing a vision of what the campus could be in the future. Remarkably, the vision was car-free.

Like many American campuses, this particular campus struggles with the car in a way that the Jeffersonian “academical village” never contemplated. Parking is now the predominant land use on this campus, and is often the first and last impression of the place. Roadways and parking now represent nearly 40 percent of the land area.

Parking has dominated our discussions with the university in recent years. Elaborate pricing structures have been developed, discarded, and then resurrected in other forms in an effort to achieve some Solomonesque equity among students, faculty and staff members, and pay grades. One proposal put forward by the vice president of administration that had some momentum would have charged each student the actual cost of a parking space — that is, the cost of land, capital improvement, operation, and maintenance — and would have represented about 50 percent of the cost of tuition.

Other “costs” have been identified as part of the ongoing discussion around the car. For instance, there’s the cost of the human infrastructure to plan/permit/police thousands of parking spaces. There are environmental costs of stormwater runoff from parking lots, of the altered hydrology, and of heat-island effects. There are social costs represented in a diminished student life and increased isolation because students find it easy to leave campus on nights and weekends, rather than interact with each other and participate in university life. And there are opportunity costs attributed to assigning land for parking that could be otherwise allocated for other purposes.

Recently we have also discussed the opportunity cost of not seizing the impressionable collegiate moment to alter lifetime behavior — by providing alternative means of transport and by reducing demand, supply, and reliance on the single-occupancy vehicle. The vice president of administration calls this approach “Don’t build it and they will not come,” and it is gaining increasing traction because it addresses costs — administrative, environmental, social, and opportunity — with some level of equilibrium. Granted, the politics are complex.

The university will select a master planner within the month. Whether intentionally or not, the car-free vision struck a chord with the selection committee. It was encouraging to see the committee think that such a vision was even possible. The years of discussion about cars, parking, and costs (of all kinds) seem to have planted a seed that could grow into a general planning principle for the future of the campus. We will see. —David McIntyre

David McIntyre, one of September’s Buildings & Grounds guest bloggers, leads the institutional practice for Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc., a consulting firm specializing in transportation, development, and the environment. You can read his previous post here.