Last month, a University of Kentucky freshman allegedly struck and killed a four-year old child while driving under the influence along Cooper Drive. Thus far, the university has already suspended the accused student and the fraternity that organized the tailgating party he was attending. More conversations about how to manage tailgating culture, responsible drinking habits, and the role of fraternities on campus are sure to be on the way. But we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about an unfortunate fact about student life at UK: it’s almost completely car-dependent.

Each year, thousands of students show up in the fall with their cars, and continue to depend on them for virtually every trip outside their homes. Coming as most of them do from suburbs and small towns, they don’t know how to live without a car, they aren’t taught, and they don’t exactly get a lot of encouragement from the way Lexington has been built out. All of this driving leads to unbearable downtown traffic congestion, a constant struggle for parking, and dangerous conditions for those students and residents who do walk or bicycle. That some students occasionally do it drunk is sad but inevitable.

The university, to its credit, does a fair amount to try and mitigate this. Right now, it’s a mix of carrots and sticks. On the carrot side, the university offers holiday shuttles to and from small towns across Kentucky, students have access to a first-class bicycle library, and anyone with a Wildcat Student ID can ride city buses for free.

On the stick side, they also price parking for students and employees, properly passing the high cost of parking maintenance along to those who use it. For most students living in the dorms, they put parking far away on surface lots out near Kroger Stadium, and those student cars need to be moved on game days. All of this should send a clear message to students. To this day, I can remember a facilitator at my orientation responding to a student indignant over the university’s parking policy: “You should leave your car at home. You don’t need it here. If there’s ever a time in your life to go car-free, this is it.”

Unfortunately, the university isn’t getting enough help from the city in dealing with the scourge of student auto-dependence. Let’s take parking. The city doesn’t price most of the on-street parking in the student-dominated neighborhoods around campus—North Elizabeth Street, Columbia Heights, and the blocks between Euclid Avenue and E Maxwell Streets.