Perambulating’s Passe? Let’s Shed Light on Issue

“Why don’t we get in my car?” Don Jacques says. “We’ll take a little drive.”

I’d never met the man, but sure, why not? So, we hop in his old Buick the other night and begin cruising Costa Mesa neighborhoods.

Jacques, a 78-year-old Massachusetts native who spent his career with New England Telephone & Telegraph, begins by telling me how things used to be, when he moved to California in 1969.

“My brother and I used to take his dogs for a walk around here,” he says, “and we saw people out walking on the street. We’d stop and talk to them. People would visit back and forth at 8 or 9 o’clock at night. Now, you never see anybody on the street.”

It’s a little after 7 on a lovely evening. It’s also pitch dark. Up one street and down another, we drive. There’s no one out. We drive for 30 minutes or so through a couple of neighborhoods. At most, I count half a dozen pedestrians.

Jacques thinks he knows why.

It’s not because people are less friendly these days.

Not because they’re too busy.

Not because of a declining sense of neighborhood.

‘Pretty Gloomy, Isn’t It?’

It’s because the street lights are so dim that no one feels safe sticking their head out the door.

In a nutshell, Jacques says, it’s too damn dark.

“Pretty gloomy, isn’t it?” he says, as we turn onto Minorca Drive.

You know what? He’s right.

On street after street, as we inch along in Jacques’ car, sometimes with the headlights off to reinforce the darkness, I’m struck by how forbidding the streets and sidewalks seem. And this includes streets with lights. I’d just never noticed it before.

Exactly, Jacques says, happy that he’s made a convert of me. People have grown accustomed to dim street lights.

“There’s plenty of poles and plenty of lights,” Jacques says. “They’re just not bright enough.”

The Costa Mesa official in charge of street lighting didn’t return my phone calls, but Jacques says the man has been cordial enough in their dealings. The official even came out and toured the neighborhood one night with Jacques.

Jacques says the official told him the city’s lights were dimmed as much as 55% during the energy shortage of the mid-1970s and never restored to their previous brightness.

I did talk to Greg French, manager of street lighting at Southern California Edison, which has 225 major governmental customers, for whom they either manage or provide service for 750,000 lights.

While laments like Jacques’ may not be uncommon, it’s just as likely that other neighbors might complain if lights were brighter, French says. For example, some might argue brighter lights would cause a nuisance by shining into their homes.

Jacques says he’s not talking about LAX-level floodlights. Just something to encourage nocturnal walkers. Just something to get people on the street again. In short, something that might breed a sense of community.

“People have gotten into a way of life of staying in the house, rather than taking a chance on going outside,” Jacques says. “This idea of living in the gloom, I don’t understand it. I wasn’t brought up that way.”

It so happens I am not an expert on street lighting. I am an expert, though, on late-night walks. I like them. I take them, even though it is darker on the street than I’d prefer.

So when Jacques says he probably sounds like a crank, I disagree.

All he’s saying is that he lives in a nice neighborhood in weather-perfect Southern California. Is it so strange to expect to see someone, anyone, out strolling on an invigorating 65-degree night?

It is on this night.

“Nobody,” Jacques says, as we turn down another street. “You’d think it was deserted.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com