The city's transportation department is recommending spending between $1.7 million and $2.3 million to improve lighting in the West Campus neighborhood after a city-commissioned study found that people who frequent the area believe it's too dark and that more lights would reduce crime.

City officials determined 228 more streetlights are needed in the area west of the University of Texas. The investment would cover lights, infrastructure, design, engineering and wiring, a representative from the Austin Transportation Department told the city's Public Safety Commission on Monday.

Commissioner Kim Rossmo, who is a criminology professor at Texas State University, questioned whether more lighting is necessarily the best solution to reduce the most prevalent kinds of crimes in the neighborhood.

Austin police crime records show thefts and burglaries are the most common crimes committed in West Campus, which is similar to the rest of the city. People in West Campus reported a total of 360 thefts to police in 2017, as well as 84 motor vehicle thefts, 52 burglaries, 20 aggravated assaults, 11 rapes and four robberies.

Rossmo said he would prefer if police officials and the university would first determine what kind of crimes they wanted to reduce in West Campus and what were the best ways to do so before making an investment to improve lighting.

"Your goal is to create a safer environment around campus," he said. "Lighting is a means to that end. ... But lighting will have no effect on residential burglaries, which usually happen in the daytime. ... Lighting is going to (reduce) fear of crime, but there's a whole lot of other things that lighting will not help."

Transportation officials said that according to an online survey that polled 400 people in West Campus, only one in five respondents thought lighting was adequate for people walking at night.

"We knew this was a big concern of West Campus stakeholders, including students in the area," said Joel Meyer with the Transportation Department, adding that his office is drafting a memo to the Austin City Council that would suggest how it could pay for the lighting improvements.

The Transportation Department hasn't completed its West Campus report yet, but officials said it should be publicly available in a few weeks.

The City Council commissioned the study last year after UT student Harrison Brown was fatally stabbed on campus in May 2017 and after UT student Haruka Weiser was beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled on campus in April 2016.

Neither student's killing happened in the West Campus area, but the incidents spurred UT students, parents and staff to talk about crime in that neighborhood and about how many of them felt unsafe there.

The study found that "around 20 percent of our existing lighting is deficient," Meyer said. "Either the light bulb was out, or there was vandalism, or a tree was obstructing the light in some way."

Some members of the Public Safety Commission expressed support for the plan, while others voiced concerns.

Commissioner Edward Scruggs pointed out that the city could bring in new lighting only to have it torn down and replaced by new development in a few years. Meyer agreed, but said the proposed construction was still worthwhile.

"Obviously with the amount of development that's happening in West Campus, it's a very dynamic situation," Meyer said. "Lighting gets improved every time there is a new high-rise going into West Campus. We have to make sure we're not overlapping things that are already happening, but we do what we can to be proactive in going out and addressing those highest-needs streets."

Scruggs suggested that the university should pay for some of this work.

"The University of Texas has a very large endowment," Scruggs said. "Can they help to pitch in on some of this? ... I think it would be a fair deal."

A UT spokesman said Tuesday the university’s ability to draw on its endowment funds for off-campus projects is limited because it must compete with on-campus needs.

In the last two years, UT has invested about $1 million to enhance lighting on campus property, including transitioning to LED lights and trimming back vegetation that interfered with visibility. The changes came in response to recommendations from a 2016 safety assessment, which included a lighting study.

