West Street Pathway: Virginia Gardens Residents Contest Tall Street Lamps

Neighbors in the little Virginia Gardens cul-de-sac said they are not upset because the city wants to construct a paved path to Cedar Rose Park behind their houses. Instead, they fear the street lamps the city might install by their backyards to light the path.

Because of the debate, the city Transportation Commission construction of the block of pathway behind Virginia Gardens homes, intially planned for this year, until next summer.

"I can see Mount Tam," said resident Asano Fertig, gesturing out her kitchen window over a bubbling crock pot. "I can see the big dipper, and other constellations. And they want to stick a 14 foot light post out there."

Behind the house, a wide dirt trail that would-be West Street stretches between Virginia Street and a basketball court beside the Ohlone Greenway. In 2009, the City of Berkeley obtained funding from Caltrans's Bicycle Transportation Account to finish transforming the trail into a completely paved path, stretching from Addison Street at Strawberry Creek Park to Cedar Rose Park and the Ohlone Greenway. The path is already paved from University Avenue to Delaware Street. The city began designing the rest of the project early this year.

As a result, some Virginia Gardens residents frequent the West Street Pathway project meetings, sending letters and even poems to the city's transportation commission to protest the tall, green lamp posts featured in the plans.

"The engineer behind the project seemed to like the poem thing instead of us getting so angry about it," said Fertig, who said her neighbor wrote a Japanese-style poem describing how he wants to have backyard camping trips with his grandkids without a spotlight overhead.

A Transportation Commission FAQ states that "the light fixtures are designed to direct light onto the pathway and adjacent landscaping areas only."

Some residents think the paved path is a good idea since it would clean up the well-worn dirt trail behind their homes. But they said they would prefer lower or in-ground lighting.

Aaron Welch, a resident near the pathway and the senior policy advisor of , said that neighbors to the completed sections of the path, between University Avenue and Delaware Street, actually advocated for more lighting on the path during the design process to keep it safe at night.

With the Virginia Gardens segment of the West Street Pathway project postponed, residents have until the end of the year to discuss the designs with the city.

"We'll have one or two more meetings to address their concerns," said Farid Javandel, the secretary of the city's transportation commission. "But the lights have to be 14 feet tall," he said, to avoid vandalism.

The city council meeting on July 19 is the tentative date for approval of a construction contract for the Delaware Street to Virginia Street segment of the West Street Pathway. See the full Phase II Design Drawings here. 

Stay tuned for more coverage of the West Street Pathway debate from Berkeley Patch.