Beauty in the eye of the beholder

Westlake’s new beautification project is flawed.

We have increased signage along a half mile of Triunfo over 300 percent. We have Westlake logos everywhere you look. We have new, four-foot by nine-foot monument signs for cul-de-sacs, yet no signage indicating where the island is.

We have new bus benches people have to enter from the street or crawl in from the back, pretty tough if you’re using a cane or walker. It’s as backwards as a new vista bench that looks away from the lake and at busy Triunfo.

The message to walkers is clearly, “don’t use the sidewalks. Jump in with the bikes and cars and use the street.” An eight-foot wide sidewalk on Triunfo is now a choking five-foot meandering path. New bus benches on Lindero force walkers off the safety of the grass and into the street. There are barriers in front of bus benches, yet walkers are forced into the street with the cars? All the while older, uneven sidewalks go unrepaired and big dollars go into logos.

Want to encourage senior health, community and family togetherness? Encourage residents to get out and bike and walk together, then make it safe for them to do so.

Prior councils created generous sidewalks and the people got out and walked. I don’t understand the present council’s priority of “looks over safety,” especially when with a little thought we could have both. Instead, we are losing a precious asset of Westlake.

Obviously, not enough of us are speaking up. Andrea Lenert Westlake Village