An empty Billy Frank Jr. seen around 9 p.m. on Sept. 29. Ella Banken//AS Review
By Sydnee Smith
In the area north of campus, streetlights are few and far between.
The darkness, along with nine reports of voyeurism between Sept. 8 and Sept. 30 in the Sehome and York areas, have left some students living in the area feeling unsafe.
For Rachel Montoya, a member of Western’s swing dancing club, the lack of adequate light at night makes her feel unsafe. The club meets late on Monday nights, meaning Montoya walks home to Gather Bellingham in the dark afterwards.
“[North Garden Street] is not a fun road to walk down when you’re alone,” Montoya said. “You just have to walk as fast as possible and hope to God no one passes you.”
Sometimes, Montoya has someone to walk with. But other times she walks alone. During those times, she said she has gotten into the habit of checking behind bushes. She also sticks to the sidewalk close to the road to prevent someone from jumping out from behind a house and blindsiding her.
The ongoing string of voyeurism incidents makes the situation even worse. Junior Grace Peyerwold lives on North Garden Street. Due to the lack of lighting she doesn’t feel safe being outside alone at night.
“Before we moved in, we were very aware of how many alerts were related to people on Garden Street. It was something we were concerned about,” Peyerwold said.
Traffic Operations Engineer Steve Haugen said that Bellingham spent millions upgrading thousands of city-owned lights to more efficient LED lights.
According to Haugen, the city has no direct pot of money to go into adding more lights and no requirement for how many lights should be on a street. Due to this, adding more street lights is not a top priority.
“We do have a policy where we will install new lights if there is an existing power pool with existing service from Puget Sound Energy and it’s in the intersection of two street,” Haugen said. “I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to install new lights, but it does need to meet those criteria.”
For Western’s lobby day in 2016 the Associated Student local issues coordinator at the time, Galen Herz, set out to lobby to improve the quality of lighting in areas students felt unsafe in, among other issues. Areas where students felt unsafe were addressed with surveys and stories from student.
“It’s a huge problem, to have creeps and voyeurs,” Herz said. “Lighting is really important for people to feel safe.”
During the 2016 lobby day students spoke about their own experiences with the mayor, Herz said. They especially had women and gender-queer individuals discuss the issue.
However, Herz is unaware of any changes the city of Bellingham or the mayor have taken with regards to the lack of lighting.
Herz also pointed out the equity issue with the lack of lighting. He said students who can’t afford cars are more likely to be walking around, even later at night. Which also makes them more susceptible to feeling unsafe while walking around at night.
Haugen did point out that the street lights on electrical poles are owned by Puget Sound Energy and not the City of Bellingham. Those lights do not dim, but use more energy and use a more yellow light, making faces harder to see in direct light.
The new lights that the City of Bellingham installed use LED white lights. Haugen said they’re better to see faces in directly. However, these street lights are now dimmed three hours after dusk, currently around 10:30 p.m., as a way for the city to make their money back by saving energy.
“A lot of people are sleeping and its gradual,” Haugen said.
In the meantime, Haugen said street lights are to light the road ways, and individuals should take matter into their own hands when dealing with the levels of darkness outside. He suggested adding more lighting outside of one’s own property.