Getting Around Campus
Oberlin College is a pedestrian friendly campus and encourages its students, and local faculty and staff, to leave their cars, motorbikes, and other motorized transportation at home.
It’s easy to traverse this 4.4-square mile community and 440-acre campus. Several paved walkways and smooth paths link north and south campus, as well as traverse Tappan Square into downtown Oberlin.
Oberlin is a bike-friendly town, with bike racks in front of most major buildings, which makes venturing around campus fast and trouble-free.
Oberlin also lies on a paved bicycle and pedestrian path along the Lorain County section of the North Coast Inland Trail , formerly called the Oberlin Bike Path. If you want to take a longer bike ride, this section travels southwest to Kipton, Ohio, and makes its way northeast to Elyria, Ohio, for a total distance of 13.5 miles. The trail cuts through Pyle Road, South Professor Street, and East Lorain Street.
If you don’t own a bike or prefer to leave your bike at home, head over to the Oberlin Bike Co-op in the basement of Keep Cottage, a cooperatively run bicycle repair, rental, and education center that opened in 1986.
The Bike Co-op provides bikes for rent on a semester or summer basis. You also can learn how to care for your bike such as patch a leaky tube, or adjust breaks gone wrong.
Most streets in Oberlin are paved, making it a pleasant place to walk to and from class, take a leisurely stroll, or a jog around the community.
The college offers a Walking Safety Escort Service from dusk to dawn upon request for anyone who prefers not to walk alone. Campus security officers, their student assistants, and the Student Shuttle System participate in this service.
You may request a safety escort to walk with you to any college building, residence hall, or parking lot by calling Campus Safety at 440-775-8444 or by using any of the blue campus emergency phones.
Oberlin EV CarShare
The City of Oberlin has two CarShare vehicles (2020 Chevrolet Bolts) available to any Oberlin resident or Oberlin College student with a valid driver's license, pending certain requirements.
The vehicles are located at the city hall parking lot (near the public library) and the George A. Abram Memorial Pavilion (next to the bike path behind McDonalds).
Learn about the EV CarShare program
Get the app and reserve a car