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January 26, 2007 Vol. 77,
no. 3S
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| ALLEY
ANALYSIS: Chris Fletcher (right) and Igor Tregub pose
in an alleyway off Hearst that they analyzed at night for
pedestrian hazards.
RACHEL SHAFER PHOTO
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New student
group lobbies city to address northside pedestrian safety
EECS freshman Chris Fletcher lives in the Foothill
Residence Halls. He knows what it’s like to leave campus at 3
a.m. after a long night of studying and walk through dark streets and
sidewalks to his room. “I’ve never personally been assaulted,
but it’s a creepy place,” he says.
Like Fletcher, many engineers live in dorms and apartments around northside
and walk home in the wee morning hours. Compounding matters, northside
businesses close early in the evening, leaving the area dark and deserted
for residents. Within the last six months, according to city crime
statistics, there have been five auto burglaries, two home burglaries,
one robbery, one stolen auto and 11 reported thefts within a quarter-mile
of Soda Hall. (These are crimes within the jurisdiction of the city,
not campus.)
Students don’t have to walk home at night by themselves, and
Cal provides the BearWALK Service and Night Safety Shuttles to off-campus
locations. But Fletcher believes more can be done. He wants businesses
to remain open longer and the city to make infrastructure improvements.
So he, ME senior Igor Tregub and others have joined forces to lobby
for a safer area.
Their group, called ACCESS (Activists’ Commission for the Creation
and Engagement of Services to Students), recently completed a report
to the city noting pedestrian hazards in the northside area. To gather
a data sample, Fletcher helped lead a nighttime stroll last semester
around a five-block area surrounding the Lower Hearst Parking Structure.
Joining him were other ACCESS members, a city council member and a
longtime resident. The group took pictures, measured sidewalk cracks
and looked through holes in fences. They recorded dark and poorly lit
areas, overgrown foliage blocking clear sightlines, sidewalk bumps,
trip hazards and homeless encampments. “The dark areas were quite
unsettling, even with a group of people,” Fletcher says. ACCESS
members also surveyed southside for the same types of hazards.
Fletcher then wrote a 21-page report, which was given to the city manager,
Phil Kamlarz. “These problems can be partially solved by extending
northside business hours,” Fletcher concludes. “Just by
having all that lighting and having someone on site makes a difference.
We hope to rally northside businesses and convince them that it is
lucrative to stay open later, and by doing so, they’ll keep the
area safer.”
Business hours are one thing; expensive city infrastructure is another.
With the City of Berkeley starting to parse its next two-year budget,
ACCESS hopes the city will give its report some thought. “We’re
going to make sure the report is not kept on the shelf,” says
Tregub. “We hope at least some of the concerns we identified
will be addressed.”
ACCESS also plans to busy itself with other student advocacy issues
such as affordable housing, transportation, environmental sustainability
and academic reform within the university, Tregub says.
For more information, e-mail itregub@gmail.com.
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