Editor:
I would like to comment on the “OB rethinking Newport Ave” article in the Sept. 1 issue of the Peninsula Beacon. I read with great interest the frustratingly brief “wish list” regarding improvements to Newport Avenue. First, I was alarmed to read that the city plans to change out the tops of the decorative acorn street lamps and replace them with LED lighting. The lighting on Newport Avenue is one of its greatest charms because the light is an inoffensive yellow that allows one to see the beauty of Newport Avenue without the glare of harsh, white LED lighting. While LED lighting may be energy efficient, the amount saved by the city is minimal compared to the labor and parts to replace the existing lighting and the loss of the aesthetic appeal of the street is the highest and unconsidered cost of the equation.
Please community, do not allow our beautiful main street to be light polluted with bright, harsh lights that make you want to wear a sun visor at night. (See for example what happened at the OB entry at Sunset Cliffs and West Point Loma where one cannot see anything but the harsh lights – at eye level of drivers – of the new stone “plaza” on the corner.)
Second, the article mentions that on the wish list is a traffic signal at Newport and Bacon. As we travel that route daily toward the beach, we always encounter traffic going down Newport as cars wait for vacating parking spaces and as people cross the street, however, it does flow due to the four-way stop sign currently in place. Installing a light at Newport and Bacon will greatly worsen the flow of traffic down Newport toward the ocean, as motorists wait for three minutes at a light and traffic backs up behind them all the way to Sunset Cliffs Boulevard. During the summer the pedestrian traffic there is heavy, and I can see the desire to control it with a light, but the consequences to the consistent flow down Newport toward Abbott will be long waits and traffic backed up to the top of Newport so that no one will want to go down our beautiful and interesting main corridor.
Thanks for listening, I hope these comments do not fall on deaf ears, especially those of our leaders on the planning board and town council. Bonnie von Westphalen
30-year OB resident