Nancy Rubin, Berkeleyside

People hanging out on Telegraph Avenue on Memorial Day.

While UC Berkeley students eat regularly downtown and on Telegraph Avenue, they generally go elsewhere to shop for clothes, get their hair cut, buy sundries or go out on the town, according to a new survey of 1,800 graduate and undergraduate students.

While 40.3 percent of the respondents say they eat weekly on Telegraph Avenue, at least half said they visit the street less than once a month to shop, work, or get personal or professional services. Instead, they go to Emeryville or San Francisco. The numbers were similar for downtown.

But the students said they would frequent Berkeley’s shops more frequently if the selection was better, the streets were cleaner and they felt safer walking around.

“The shopping districts near campus are under-performing,” City Council member Laurie Capitelli said in a press release. “And yet there are over 35,000 students nearby who are potential customers. If we are going to revitalize our local business districts we need to understand what the campus community wants to see here. Otherwise we are going to continue to lose business to Emeryville and San Francisco.”

Safety seems to be one reason many UC students steer clear of Telegraph Avenue. More than 66 percent the respondents – who were overwhelmingly female – said they would patronize Telegraph Avenue more often if they felt safer. Seventy-five percent said they would walk around more if the streets were “cleaner and more inviting” and 65 percent said they would visit more often if there were fewer panhandlers. The percentages were slightly lower for the downtown area.

“The survey underscores the fact that a high proportion of students do not feel safe in the business districts, particularly on Telegraph Avenue,” said Clara Botstein, Graduate Assembly legislative director for city and community affairs, who coordinated the survey.

The survey results come at a time when business owners in the downtown and Telegraph Avenue area have been expressing concern about keeping sidewalks clear from congregating groups of homeless people and youth. The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce held a seminar in early April to discuss whether Berkeley should have a sit-lie ordinance like the one enacted by San Francisco last year. That prompted a number of marches and rallies against any sit-lie ordinance in Berkeley, even though no city official has introduced one. If Mayor Tom Bates or any City Council member ever had an interest in suggesting a sit-lie law, they no longer do as the protests seem to have had a chilling effect, according to city insiders who asked not to be named.

The survey was conducted by the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly and Associated Students of the University of California. More than 1,800 UC students and staff responded to an online questionnaire. Fifty-two percent of the respondents were undergraduates, 38 percent were graduate students and the rest were faculty and staff. The majority of those who answered the questions were women – 65 percent – and most were in between the ages of 21 and 35.

The Telegraph Business Improvement District, Downtown Berkeley Association, UC Berkeley’s Local Government and Community Relations Office, City Council members Laurie Capitelli, Susan Wengraf, Gordon Wozniak and the city of Berkeley’s Office of Economic Development were partners in the project.

In the survey, 86.9 percent of the students expressed a desire for an “all-purpose” store that sold general items, like a Target, a “basic clothing” store (79.6 percent),  an “upscale” clothing” store (86 percent), an electronics store (78 percent) a household appliance store (78.5 percent) and a grocery store (78.3 percent).

Target won’t come to Berkeley because the company already has stores in Albany and Emeryville, said Dave Fogarty, the acting director of economic development. Berkeley is interested in bringing an all-purpose store to downtown, but has not yet attracted one, he said.

The survey “shows both the severe problem but it also shows the potential,” Fogarty said. “If we could have adequate policies in place to create a sense of safety and well-being on our sidewalks and we had a few more stores that sold articles that students were interested in buying, the sales tax situation would improve for the city of Berkeley.”

Click here to read some of the 4,000 comments students submitted about Telegraph and downtown.