Every day, especially on a wet and rainy day, Berkeley and Oakland streets are full of newspapers around the bus stops. Why? Because benches are damp, wet, and people would use newspapers in the newsstands nearby to cover them. When the bus comes, they just get up and leave the papers behind. Then the wind comes and blows all of the loose pages onto the sidewalks and streets, and creates a mess.
Newspaper stands just a few steps away from this bench on University Avenue and 6th street in Berkeley.
People are lining up to get on a AC Transit bus, and leave the papers on the bench.
... And now they are rested on the sidewalk.
Newspaper stands near the bus stop on Telegraph Avenue and 18th street in Oakland. Even though the trash bin is nearby, who is going to get up and put the papers in when the bus comes? Hardly anybody. To solve the problem, prohibit the newspaper companies from putting their stands near the bus stop. Or they should staple their newspapers together to prevent them from coming apart and flying all over the place when the wind blows.
Another mess that both cities do not want is posters and ads that people stick to lamp posts, benches, traffic light posts, trees, telephone poles, newsstands, and buildings. Every year both cities spend lots of money and manpower to scrape or pull them off. Yet both cities post their own notices on poles, despite supposedly banning the same from ordinary citizens.
Oakland is doing a little better than Berkeley, though: while they both post signs, Oakland's notices are strapped to the posts with rubber bands and paper clips, instead of the City of Berkeley's, which are taped with masking tape. You can't prohibit citizens from posting anywhere and then post your own everywhere: that's a double standard.
This poster on the lamp post is posted right on top of Oakland's prohibited sign on San Pablo Avenue and 18th street.
Posters on traffic light post on the corner of University Avenue and 6th street in Berkeley.
This one is on San Pablo and University Avenue in Berkeley.
Every time the city pulls or scrapes some ads off the post, new ones would later pop up. It is an ongoing problem. Now how are you going to solve it?
