JC Reindl

Detroit Free Press

Detroit is ahead of schedule in fixing miles of broken streetlights, a visual emblem of the city's decades-long decline that seemed to be reinforced Tuesday by a sudden power outage that doused all traffic lights and darkened public buildings for several hours.

Public Lighting Authority of Detroit has already finished the first year of its three-year, $185-million plan to fix, modernize and downsize the street lighting system to address one of the most commonly heard complaints among residents, some of whom have lived on darkened blocks for years or are afraid to walk their neighborhood streets after dusk.

Authority CEO Odis Jones said the overall work is ahead of schedule, with about 65% of Detroit neighborhoods now set up with new LED fixtures. The goal is to relamp all of the city's neighborhoods by the end of 2015 and to get the lights up along all of the thoroughfares by the end of 2016. About 30,000 of the new lights are now up and working.

"When we're finished we are going to have a modernized street lighting system and a street lighting system that we can afford to manage," Jones said.

For many residents, there is celebration in their relit neighborhoods. "We're seeing lights come on that we haven't seen on in years," said John George, founder of Motor City Blight Busters, who lives in Old Redford.

There is also some controversy as crews remove some still-working streetlights while installing the new LEDs on a different part of the block. East-side resident Michael Simms, 59, said earlier this year workers pulled out a streetlight in front of his house on Lakepointe Street, leaving the pole.

The city had installed that light just two years earlier following his repeated calls over nine months about a burned-out bulb, he said. While the modernization crews did add an LED light three houses down from his house, his property is no longer as well lit.

"Why would they move a perfectly good light that was working?" Simms said. "I thought they were going to add light, not take light out."

Asked about the removals, Jones said the relighting project will add brightness across the city as a whole, although every single house will not necessarily be better lit.

"While someone may have had a light in front of their house, the reality of it is that that light was going to be decommissioned anyway because the old circuit system is coming out," he said.

Fewer fixtures, brighter lights

Instead of a one-for-one swap of old lights for new ones, the total number of Detroit streetlights will drop to 65,000 from about 88,000 when the work is done.

For placement, the new standard will be one light every 200 feet or 300 feet on an occupied block. That means about a light every five houses and three lights per each typical block — one at each corner, plus one in the center.

Detroiters have long blamed nonworking lights for higher crime, avoidable traffic accidents and a heightened sense of vulnerability after dark.

Early estimates put the number of working Detroit streetlights at just 60% of the 88,000. But even that figure — believed to be the lowest in the country — was too generous. A city-wide survey by the lighting authority discovered the problem was even worse.

"We found that less than 40% of them were working," Jones said last month. "It's one thing to have a light up; it's another thing to have it actually working."

The pruning of the streetlights is being done to reflect the city's reduced population and the greater brightness of LEDs compared with the old high-pressure sodium and mercury vapor bulbs. The LED lights also last longer, use less power and don't contain copper — a hot metal for scrappers.

The annual electric bill for all streetlights in Detroit is projected to drop to $3.4 million from $15 million with the new lights, even though so many of the old ones don't working.

Privatization of maintenance

The modernization effort has involved the quiet privatization of maintenance and technical work once handled by hundreds of unionized municipal employees.

The city's old Public Lighting Department, which employed more than 700 people in the 1970s, is being phased out and replaced by the Public Lighting Authority, a separate entity from city government that will employ only 20 to 25 workers.

Long-term maintenance work for the new LED lights will not be done by City of Detroit employees and instead will be outsourced to private contractors.

"We're going to rebid it probably every spring, because I believe that competition equals the best value for the residents," Jones said.

Most of the contractors involved in the ongoing modernization are headquartered in Detroit or have offices here. The primary three are State Line Construction, Motor City Electric Co. and Corby Energy Services.

DTE Energy is an adviser and is handling LED light maintenance on a short-term basis.

The modernization project is being financed by two bond issues via the Michigan Finance Authority — a $60-million sale in December and a $185-million sale in July. Proceeds from the July sale will pay back the December borrowing, which was done to jump-start the work.

There was enough money to install a test batch of gizmos on some light poles, including a "ShotSpotter" gunfire location device for Detroit police.

Mayor Mike Duggan said he is pleased with the project's progress. The lighting department will stick around for a while to scrap the old metal components and use those proceeds to do environmental clean-up work.

Early fans of the new streetlights include Claire Nowak-Boyd, 30, who lives near Detroit's border with Hamtramck. The old lights on her block rarely worked, and one could easily tell where Detroit ends and Hamtramck begins by the appearance (or disappearance) of light.

But the contrast disappeared when workers installed the LEDs last month — including one in front of her house.

"So I am pretty spoiled," she said. "I'm actually going to have to get a new curtain, because it's way brighter in my room at night."

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JCReindl.

Streetlight modernization project

■Costs about $185 million

■Will make all street and thoroughfare lights LEDs

■Will reduce total street lights to 65,000 from 88,000

■All neighborhoods to be relit by late 2015

■All thoroughfares to be done by late 2016

Source: Public Lighting Authority of Detroit