North Village remains poorly lit despite safety concerns

When it comes to lighting the streets of Westwood’s North Village, many students are in the dark.

Improving poorly lit areas of Westwood is an issue that has cycled in and out of Undergraduate Students Association Council elections and local government meetings for decades. Though some students in the residential area between Veteran and Gayley avenues said they want the area to be better lit, financial barriers and a lack of urgent safety concerns have delayed any potential progress toward improved lighting.

Students can walk a block down Kelton Avenue or Veteran Avenue before the soft warm glow of acorn-shaped street lights begins to fade. Eight dull lights line Kelton Avenue between Gayley and Levering avenues, and an area near Ophir Drive is completely unlit for several hundred feet. Illuminated only by the headlights of passing cars, the broken sidewalks are shadowed in darkness.

“The street lighting definitely doesn’t make you feel safe when walking home,” said Maria Gutierrez, a fourth-year Chicana/o studies student, while gesturing up Kelton Avenue.

Gutierrez lives on Veteran Avenue, an area that has no lighting or even sidewalks for large portions butting up against the Los Angeles National Cemetery. Because she doesn’t feel totally safe at night, she said she often goes out of her way to get a ride home or walk with a friend.

Getting additional lighting in the area housing off-campus students has its challenges.

First, a community must apply to the Bureau of Street Lighting either on its own or through its councilmember.

The bureau will install a light when they get approval from the city and local neighbors, but it is up to the community to foot the bill, racking up into the tens of thousands, said Fabian Cheng, a manager at the Bureau of Street Lighting, housed under L.A.’s Department of Public Works.

One basic street light costs about $15,000. But the lights in Westwood are more decorative than functional. They are much dimmer than the basic lighting options in other parts of the city and cost extra, Cheng said. He added that he can’t recall a single request for Westwood in recent years.

UCLA Facilities Management has worked with local government officials in the past to repair lights in the area near campus, said Kelly Schmader, the assistant vice chancellor of facilities management. Facilities Management would be willing to look into the issue of additional lighting again, but no one has come to them about it in recent years, Schmader said.

If an area calls for new or improved lights for urgent safety reasons, local councilmembers can help push through the funding and installation processes. But for Westwood, the burden falls entirely on the community because there is no urgent safety concern, according to university police.

Vickie Do, who lives on Kelton Avenue, said the dim lighting can be daunting when walking alone, but there are generally other people walking around, which makes her feel safe.

“(Crime) happens in lit and unlit areas,” the third-year linguistics student said. “I’m not sure if it is the lighting or just the area.”

At least 12 robberies and burglaries occurred in the North Village area so far this academic year, but university police are not able to make a strong correlation between street lighting and crime rates in the North Village, UCPD spokesperson Nancy Greenstein said in an email statement.

Though residents often feel safer in brightly lit areas, it is often a false sense of security, said UCLA anthropology professor Jeffrey Brantingham.

“Lighting is a double-edged sword,” Brantingham said. Criminals also prefer well lit areas so they can see who is coming and feel in control of their surroundings. Studies show that crime and lighting have a weak correlation, he said.

Several student and neighborhood leaders have tried to push for more lighting in the area in recent years, but have lacked tangible results.

USAC President Avinoam Baral and former-facilities commissioners Armen Hadjimanoukian, Stephen Kramer, Michael Starr and Galen Roth listed lighting concerns as their platforms when running for office. Four of the current members of the Westwood Neighborhood Council members also listed the same issue as one of their primary objectives while in office.

Student members Hadjimanoukian and Angus Beverly are both on the Neighborhood Council Public Safety Committee to advocate for student and resident lighting needs among other safety concerns. The Neighborhood Council is an advisory board that represents the Westwood community on behalf of the Los Angeles City Council.

“As students, we move in and read about all these robberies and assume there is this crime wave,” said Hadjimanoukian, a fourth-year economics student. But most large cities like Los Angeles have some element of crime, he added.

When the topic comes up at Neighborhood Council meetings, councilmembers often raise concerns about funding the right lighting options while maintaining the charm of the area.

Former-Neighborhood Council member Michael Stajura said the Neighborhood Council backed installing new lights a few years ago, but an objection from another resident about the look of the lights stalled the process indefinitely.

“Everyone values the importance of street lights. That is not the issue,” Stajura said. “The real issue is competing demands and inertia.”

Stajura said he thinks that the mostly transient student population is so focused on school and other issues that they don’t have the time to devote to improving the area the way that long term residents do.

“The biggest problem with the North Village is that students leave after a while. No one really calls it home,” Beverly said. “It is not a suburban neighborhood.”

Beverly said he plans to reach out to L.A. city Councilmember Paul Koretz, who represents Westwood’s district, to push forward with the lighting on Veteran Avenue in the coming months.

Contributing reports by Melyssa Cruz, Bruin contributor.