Oxford, MS’s lack of intercity transit will cost its local economy this weekend

Ole Miss's Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, pictured here during a game, is quite challenging to access. (Photo courtesy of Maddie Lee, via Twitter)

General William Tecumseh Sherman’s 1864 March to the Sea cut the Confederacy’s intercity transportation system in two, pushing that rogue state closer to its demise.

The Rebels – specifically, the University of Mississippi – still lack sufficient mobility.

Oxford, MS, the college town where the Cal Bears football team will take on Ole Miss this Saturday (September 21), does have a local bus system, which Oxford University Transit (OUT) has made some modest improvements to this year. Additionally, a bikeshare system serves the Ole Miss campus (including its tree sitter-less Grove) as well as a small slice of Oxford’s downtown.

Cal and Ole Miss’s players and coaches will arrive to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on charter buses, as is normal for college football teams.

However, Oxford – though named after its British counterpart that sees rail departures every several minutes – lacks a passenger train station, commercial airport, or intercity bus stop. Thus, out-of-town fans lack a viable way of getting there that doesn’t involve a car.

As one of those fans, I plan to spend my Saturday afternoon watching the Bears, 3-0 for the third consecutive year and ranked in the Top 25 for the first time this season, attempt to make an important statement against the Southeastern Conference’s Rebs. It will be Cal’s first away game against an SEC opponent since a 2006 season-opening upset loss to Tennessee, in Greyhound-accessible Knoxville, undermined a top-ten preseason ranking.   

But though this will be a rare Cal appearance east of the Mississippi River, I’ll be watching on TV from my apartment in Washington, DC, rather than in person. Given the lack of adequate transportation to Oxford, I decided that it makes more sense – in terms of time, cost, and convenience – to catch the Bears on the more distant, but more accessible West Coast against a Pacific-12 foe later this season.

A Chapel Hill Transit bus. (Photo courtesy of GovDelivery)

The game at Ole Miss contrasts strongly with Cal’s last trip to the eastern part of the country, when the Bears traveled to Chapel Hill and defeated the North Carolina Tar Heels in the season opener two years ago.

I rode Amtrak’s Silver Star train from DC to Cary, NC the Friday evening before that 2017 game. I’d planned to get off in Raleigh and take GoTriangle buses to Chapel Hill, but due to some flash flood warnings the train pulled into the state capital behind schedule, after the last bus had left.

Thus, I stayed on the train until Cary (several miles closer to my destination, and the Silver Star’s last stop in the Research Triangle metro area before it turns south towards Florida) from where I unfortunately had to take Lyft to Chapel Hill. But once there, I had little difficulty getting around the college town on its fareless local bus system, which ran past bar closing time.

After Cal’s 35-30 victory the next afternoon, I took GoTriangle’s Route 400 bus up to Durham, paralleling the should-be light rail line  that Duke University, the Tar Heels’ rival, has obstructed for the time being. After hitting up a couple breweries in Durham, I hopped on an evening Megabus to DC, making it back in time to catch Metrobus’s 96 from Union Station.

My trip to Chapel Hill benefitted that region’s economy. Including food, drinks, lodging, and game tickets, I probably spent at least $250 there, helping support local jobs and keep business steady. I’ve also spoken positively about the experience to friends and family, spreading word-of-mouth that may inspire others to takes trips there, already or in the future.

Amtrak's Crescent train makes its daily stop in Tuscaloosa, home of Ole Miss's SEC West rival Alabama. (Photo courtesy of Tuscaloosa News)

Had I headed down to Oxford for this weekend’s game, I likely would have spent at least as much at that area’s businesses. But because a portion of those expenditures would have had to be on some form of car-based transportation, everyone lost.

Some may say that I’m the one missing out, claiming that a car would have given me “freedom” to get to and attend the game that other forms of mobility “cannot.” However, I see things from a different perspective: countless other college towns have safe, reliable, and affordable intercity mobility, while Oxford and Ole Miss have neglected their students, other residents, and visitors.

Every Pac-12 school – even Washington State, situated in remote Pullman – is located in a city or town with some form of intercity transit connectivity. It’s not perfect – for example, to get to Arizona State (situated in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe) by train, people must ride Amtrak’s three-day-per-week Sunset Limited to Maricopa, AZ, then transfer to a connecting bus – but at least the option is there.

Much of the Southeast is also better-connected than Oxford is. For example, if the Bears were instead playing Southern Miss in Hattiesburg, where an Aaron Rodgers-quarterbacked Cal team won an unexpectedly close regular season finale in 2004, I could enjoy a one-seat ride from DC on Amtrak’s Crescent. Other college towns the Crescent serves include Tuscaloosa, AL and Clemson, SC, home to the schools whose football teams have played each other for the national title three of the past four seasons.

An advertisement for Amtrak's state-supported Capitol Corridor route plays on California Memorial Stadium's scoreboard during a game. (Photo courtesy of mini, via TripAdvisor)

It’s been an exciting start to this season for the Cal football team. Two weeks ago, the Bears traveled to Seattle and, after waiting out a two-hour lightning delay, defeated a heavily-hyped Washington Huskies team 20-19. (Sound Transit and King County Metro extended rail and bus service that night to provide fans who stayed until 1:30am to see Cal’s Greg Thomas kick the winning field goal a reasonable way home.)

The past two seasons, however, Cal has lost its fourth game after winning its first three. It’s important for the Bears, led by their defensive backs known as the Takers, to maintain momentum this time.

But no matter what happens on the field, after the game the Cal team will get back on its charter buses, get out of Oxford, and return to a place with better mobility. The same cannot be said for the Rebels, who will have to deal with the consequences of a regional transportation plan that prioritizes automobile Level of Service above all else.