Volunteers from the Ames community helped local police shine the light on not so bright places throughout Campustown on Thursday evening in hopes to make Campustown as safe as possible for pedestrians.

The effort, which is known as the annual Campustown Safety Walk, is organized by the Ames City Police to promote safety within Campustown and help make residents more aware of safety hazards. The walk has now taken place as far back as 2005.

Volunteers from Student Government; the South Campus Neighborhood Association; Campustown business owners; and ISU faculty all help walk the neighborhood.

“It’s a nice little networking opportunity as well,” said Community Resource Officer Eric Snyder.

Volunteers from all over the community, including City Council members Chris Nelson and Gloria Betcher, met at Fire Station 2 on Welch Avenue to receive a map of the area their group would cover.

Snyder said volunteers are looking for anything from poorly-lit areas to overgrown shrubbery.

“If you feel unsafe or something looks unsafe, we’ll be looking for that kind of stuff,” Snyder said.

Groups stretched as far east and west as Beach Avenue and Sheldon Avenue and as far north and south as Lincoln Way and Knapp Street.

As the groups made their journey back to the station, city police logged their findings. After collecting all the safety hazards, police took the information back to either the university or a city department.

A majority of the issues that were discovered were poorly maintained shrubbery, trip hazards on the sidewalk and burnt out post lights in the residential areas.

Police can’t enforce private properties to maintain shrubbery or to better light their area, but they will call to make them aware of the issue. Snyder said property owners are many times not aware because nobody has ever said something to them.

Snyder said some of the issues are more difficult to fix. One example is a tree root pushing up a slab of sidewalk.

“Some of those issues end up staying there for a while,” Snyder said.

Light posts can cause issues as well. The city tries to replace bulbs with newer LED bulbs because they have higher energy efficiency, which can be costly, according to Snyder. In certain situations, the new bulbs won’t fit the existing pole.

“Sometimes you’ll have to be buying a new light pole and a new light bulb, which gets really expensive,” Snyder said.

Snyder said dome of these more costly hazards get put on a replacement schedule, so the payment can be more spread out over time.

“The more people that request it and ask for it to be fixed, the easier it is for the City Council to approve spending that money,” Snyder said.

All Ames residents are encouraged to maintain their property and call Ames Police at 515-239-5133 if they see an area that appears unsafe or hazardous.