i don’t know if there are street lights along that section of grand. It seems odd that there are street lights aplenty from perkins to harrison and none the other way. it was only until i remembered that the street lights from 19th St Bart to 24th St are regularly off that I even considered that there may be lights which are dark.

the intersection in question doesn’t really need a signal, i just need to be able to see pedestrians crossing. heck there are crossings on telegraph that could use more light to alert drivers. there is a crossing in temescal that becomes dangerous if an SUV blocks it. pedestrians take it for granted that they are going to be seen and that just isn’t true.

Getting traffic signals is a lot harder, as they are quite expensive. Took approx 24 years to get the one recently installed in front of Westlake Middle Schoo!

When you said “below Perkins,” I assumed you meant west of Perkins, so I was trying to think of whether there was a store on the corner of Lee or Lenox. It was only after I looked at a google map that I remembered that Ellita was a T (and reminded myself of the name, too). I didn’t mean to be critical—I was just pointing out that terms like “above” and “below” can sometimes mean different things to different people, which may be why Naomi Schiff and I were having trouble picturing the corner that you were talking about. Ellita is an easily forgotten street, since it’s only a block long, and it was only after I checked the map that I even remembered its existence. I usually use “below” to mean “west,” since most East-West avenues in Oakland go uphill as they go east, but maybe others use the terms differently.

Anyway, back to the substance, I may have misunderstood what you were talking about, since I jumped into this thread late. Do you mean crosswalks which aren’t accompanied by any traffic lights, or crosswalks where the streetlights are out, making the street dark? I thought you meant the former. If you meant the latter, then I misunderstood, and my comment above was not totally applicable. I don’t know which intersections on Grand have streetlights that are out. (I seem to be misunderstanding one thing after another today…)

willing to consider an alternative explanation…now given the frequency with which street lights are dark, it could be that the lights were not on the night i drove through the intersection.

Not sure which direction you mean by “below” Perkins, but there are several crosswalks on that stretch of Grand which don’t have any traffic lights–at Lee and Lenox on the west side of Perkins, and at Ellita and Bellevue on the east side. Ellita is the one that makes a T with Grand and has a store with a small parking lot on the corner (there is also a little grocer at Perkins too, on the opposite side of Grand). Even when it’s daytime, I almost always use the crosswalks that have lights (Bay, Fairyland, Perkins, Staten, Euclid, etc.) because Grand is too wide to scurry across quickly, and very few drivers seem inclined to stop for pedestrians in crosswalks unless a ped walks out in front of them and forces them to stop (and that’s really no fun for either party).

the above is just one example, people also do it on College. There is a section of College Ave above RR BART that has dark intersections where pedestrians cross w/o a light. From a safety standpoint, I think we need to address how we address pedestrians crossings.

At some point everyone is a pedestrian, but we need to be honest, bay peeps are eco friendly and take their ped rights seriously. we need to do more than just add crosswalks. add crosswalk buttons that light up to alert drivers to the presence of a pedestrian in the crosswalk. something like this also becomes helpful when SUVs block your vision.

Robert, thanks. Now that you mention it, I do recall 24th below Valdez being a one way street headed west.

I will go look at Grand ave. crossings the next time I am over there. I was thinking a store IS at Perkins, but maybe it’s a different one.

I wish I could remember the street name on Grand, but can’t. I believe it is just past the convenience store. I think it is the only pedestrian crossing below Perkins not at a light. In any event, it lacks any light so it is near impossible to pick-up pedestrians attempting to cross. Pedestrians cross and drivers come to screeching halt