After petitioning and voicing community concerns since 2016, SafeHorns, in collaboration with Austin Energy, announced on Twitter Sept. 13 that they improved over 600 light fixtures in West Campus to increase safety.

SafeHorns is an organization comprised of UT alumni, parents and faculty that advocates for and implements safety for students. SafeHorns president Joell McNew said a survey conducted on West Campus lighting from 2017 to 2018 revealed that lighting didn’t meet the organization’s standards. 

“The number one concern, immediately for students, was lighting,” McNew said. “As you walk further towards Lamar (Boulevard), you will notice that it’s much darker.”

Based on the results of their survey, SafeHorn’s lighting project plan includes replacing street lamp lights with LED light bulbs, repairing old light fixtures, trimming foliage above lighting and installing more streetlamps across West Campus. The lighting survey and multiple complaints reveal students fear walking in the dimly lit areas of West Campus, making the area the lighting project’s number one priority, McNew said.

Elton Richards, vice president of electric system field operations for Austin Energy, said in a press release that the quality of lighting in West Campus is caused by old, yellowing light bulbs and overgrown trees.

“Some of the issues that we corrected were changing out over 600 fixture heads to the new LED type, which gives more of a lighting pattern and a brighter lighting,” Richards said in the press release. “There was also a very intense vegetation management program within there to raise the canopy of the trees above the lighting so that existing lights would get on to the sidewalk and roadway.”

Journalism freshman Jennifer Smith said she feels unsafe walking in West Campus, especially as a freshman living on her own in an unfamiliar city for the first time.

“It’s spooky, especially your first time away from home,” Smith said. “There’s also this spot along my walk home that’s so dark that I need a flashlight. Eventually, I started taking a different street.”

Richards said Austin Energy puts effort and priority in making a safer environment for UT students and the Austin community.

“The solutions and the actions that we’ve taken and the future actions that we are taking will give a brighter, safer roadway and pathway for anyone, including students or citizens of Austin, or even tourists in that area,” Richards said

Even with their latest project, SafeHorns is continuing to push for more lighting improvements, like lighting in areas with construction, McNew said.  

“We still want the developers to do their part,” McNew said. “They’re putting up those construction walkways for (students) all to walk safely along that construction site. We want them lit up with solar lighting.”

McNew said it blows her mind that it took so long to improve lighting in West Campus. 

“Generally, the majority of female students will say ‘It‘s scary to me,’ ‘I always walk with a friend’ or ‘I’m afraid something will happen to me,’ and it shouldn’t be that way,” McNew said. “We should all be able to walk through our community and feel safe.”