Street Lights Out All Over the City

I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I'm starting to wonder if the city is purposely leaving street lights off to save money. I live in Rosedale Park along Outer Drive and the lights have been out for months. Now, I have a friend who lives on East Outer Drive near Dickerson and the lights on that Outer Drive have been out for months. On a ride south on Outer Drive, I discovered that the lights on Plymouth, west of Burt Rd. are also out. But get this, the lights on Plymouth are working fine once you enter Redford Township. Also, upon returning home via Telegraph to Fenkell heading east, I noticed that lights are out on several patches of Fenkell, and the first light along many side streets immediately north of Fenkell are out.

In addition, there are several outages on many of the major streets. Gratiot, Grand River, Jefferson, Warren and Forest have outages in several sections. Even the Jeffries Freeway has outages along several stretches. Now, I know that there have been several outages due to stormy weather, but in Detroit those storms took place weeks ago. Again, I don't want to believe that the city is doing this to save money, but having these many street lights out for several months, with no explanation as to why, is getting me to wonder, "Could this be by design?"

Something is going on with more major streets involved than before. For one the lighting infrastructure is old in many areas. Lights on in certain areas all the time. Then others seems to go out on rotation. Some a never lit no matter how many call to the city. Some streets and areas seem to be the 'outlands' deemed to not have lighting service at all [[Fenkell)... Of course the street lights are burning bright and gleaming around all three casinos.

God, so what, Have you heard of 'light pollution'? like there isn't already more than enough light in urban areas? Who cares if the street lights go out once in a while. When I have been in European cities I enjoy the atmosphere of fewer and less obnoxiously bright street lights. Cars have headlights, many buildings have their own external lighting, same with homes and parking areas. My city does not even have street lighting and it's mostly pretty here at night except for the houses that have about 5-10 exterior lights going at megawatts.

The more lights not used are that much less demand on fossil fuels and power plants. And the ambience of natural darkness is wonderful. When was the last time many of us on Dyes saw the Milky Way at night?

Saw the stars [[the Big Dipper constellation) out in my lot actually where lighting is less... nice. Even better up in Clarkston for example where I'd expect to see them as it's not a big city.

Umm, yeah there is light pollution and there's getting 'knocked in the head' and criminal-getting-away in-the-dark 'pollution'! I'll take proper lighting seeing as how I'm not living in a rural setting [[or Europe) and our city taxes continue to increase for this most basic service amongst others.

Personally, I prefer the motion lights that only come on when someone comes around the property at night over the mega wattage stuff. But a pole on a street with a 'bulb' in it should be lit thru the night. Otherwise why is it there? Perhaps the metal scrappers have not gotten to it yet?

The 'aesthetic' of dark quaintness and the atmospheric pleasure therein have a place and value, but with CRIME up in the city we need the street lights turned on... like um, NOW!

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Originally Posted by kryptonite

God, so what, Have you heard of 'light pollution'? like there isn't already more than enough light in urban areas? Who cares if the street lights go out once in a while. When I have been in European cities I enjoy the atmosphere of fewer and less obnoxiously bright street lights. Cars have headlights, many buildings have their own external lighting, same with homes and parking areas. My city does not even have street lighting and it's mostly pretty here at night except for the houses that have about 5-10 exterior lights going at megawatts.

The more lights not used are that much less demand on fossil fuels and power plants. And the ambience of natural darkness is wonderful. When was the last time many of us on Dyes saw the Milky Way at night?

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In an east side area, near Conner and Kercheval, a developer was told that the reason all the street lights are out on Kercheval from Conner to Alter is because people keep stealing the wiring and other equipment. They have no intention of replacing the lights at this time, even though this developer just built 24 housing units that border on Kercheval. Some of these units will offer housing to previously homeless people, and some will offer supportive housing to the mentally or physically challenged.

And now they will have no street lights. These are families mostly, with small children. Some of the residents have to catch a bus to get services, go to work, get to school. In the winter months especially, this will be a big problem and a safety issue.

The developer is petitioning the City to replace the lighting, but doesn't hold out much hope as they seem unwilling to do so.

^^^^Good point. Yeah Conner is dark and dangerous as cars fly thru down that street and it has the tendency to fog in the early rush hour. The crime up-tick over there is a challenge made worse with the poor lighting. And yes the scrappers have been pulling out the metal panels of the older street lights. How long will people in this town continue to saw off the legs of the chair of which they sit. Ugh!

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Originally Posted by kryptonite

God, so what, Have you heard of 'light pollution'? like there isn't already more than enough light in urban areas? Who cares if the street lights go out once in a while. When I have been in European cities I enjoy the atmosphere of fewer and less obnoxiously bright street lights.

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I disagree -- Street lights are important for lowering crime and improving safety first. They are a necessity in any urban area. There are large swaths of Detroit that are 'dark' compared to other American cities, but this does not mean there aren't people living in these areas.

Light pollution is just a bad result that can be improved upon. I totally agree that European cities are "darker" and overall better at mitigating light pollution. But this is because they have installed street lights with domes that direct the light to the ground, not scatter light into the sky. Many older streetlights had this problem, and Detroit is full of old streetlights.

The final problem is that Detroit experiences rampant scrapping and tampering with the electrical and lighting infrastructure in the city, resulting in outages.

But this does not mean they shouldn't be on all the time. They absolutely should be on. The city should be working to turn them back on and replace or restore the old ones. But as we know things happen a bit more slowly around here... I have heard of a neighbor making a call to get the street light fixed in front of her house, and it took a few months for them to come out, but they finally did.

The point is that streetlights are VERY important for Safety. A dark section on Forest or in the neighborhoods, major street or side street, is a perfect place for a mugger to hide. And as many Detroiters can attest, crimes are often committed in areas where there are no streetlights -- or where they are not working.

And the crime rate in Detroit is so wonderfully low because normally street lights function?

Personally, I don't see that crime is deterred by street lighting. I was robbed at gunpoint in my driveway in Detroit. There was a street light right in front of my house on my property line, plus my own front light and a flood light on my garage that lit the driveway.

Seems to me that it just lit the area better for the crooks. Another neighbor was held up at gunpoint on the sidewalk in front of my house, and three stolen cars were parked in front of my house over the years during the night, and my neighbor's house was invaded through an ulocked window that was on the side of their house lit by our street light and my garage light, while they slept at night. Yet there was a street light right there.

We also had a well-lit ATM nearby that was a regular source of gunfire at night.

In the last few months late at night on the Lodge I've noticed for a few miles all the center lights are out. You have to rely on your headlights with no other lighting - it doesn't seem particulary safe.

Do a search on how to keep your home safer [[Not safe, but safer) and it's going to say to keep your home well lit.

Of course you can get mugged with a streetlight in front of your house. You can also get your house broken into if you have deadbolts on the door. That doesn't mean you don't use deadbolts.The point is to make it as difficult as you can for crime to take place and lighting does that.

If you have to work late at night by yourself and you have to walk through a well lit parking lot compared to one that's dark, which one would you rather deal with?

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Originally Posted by kryptonite

And the crime rate in Detroit is so wonderfully low because normally street lights function?

Personally, I don't see that crime is deterred by street lighting. I was robbed at gunpoint in my driveway in Detroit. There was a street light right in front of my house on my property line, plus my own front light and a flood light on my garage that lit the driveway.

Seems to me that it just lit the area better for the crooks. Another neighbor was held up at gunpoint on the sidewalk in front of my house, and three stolen cars were parked in front of my house over the years during the night, and my neighbor's house was invaded through an ulocked window that was on the side of their house lit by our street light and my garage light, while they slept at night. Yet there was a street light right there.

We also had a well-lit ATM nearby that was a regular source of gunfire at night.

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Kryptonite, I believe in karma and with such a funky attitude as you have, I'm not surprised that you were a victim of crime. Your statements are ridiculous. So being in a well-lit area didn't prevent you from being a victim of crime so you think the rest of us here in Detroit should be OK in the dark and accept becoming potential crime victims? I really don't understand why you bothered expressing yourself on this thread. BTW, you do know that "kryptonite" was poisonous to Superman, right?

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Originally Posted by royce

I'm not a conspiracy nut, but I'm starting to wonder if the city is purposely leaving street lights off to save money. I live in Rosedale Park along Outer Drive and the lights have been out for months. Now, I have a friend who lives on East Outer Drive near Dickerson and the lights on that Outer Drive have been out for months. On a ride south on Outer Drive, I discovered that the lights on Plymouth, west of Burt Rd. are also out. But get this, the lights on Plymouth are working fine once you enter Redford Township. Also, upon returning home via Telegraph to Fenkell heading east, I noticed that lights are out on several patches of Fenkell, and the first light along many side streets immediately north of Fenkell are out.

In addition, there are several outages on many of the major streets. Gratiot, Grand River, Jefferson, Warren and Forest have outages in several sections. Even the Jeffries Freeway has outages along several stretches. Now, I know that there have been several outages due to stormy weather, but in Detroit those storms took place weeks ago. Again, I don't want to believe that the city is doing this to save money, but having these many street lights out for several months, with no explanation as to why, is getting me to wonder, "Could this be by design?"

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I don't see conspiracies at every turn but know how you feel.I lived on the East side of Detroit[[E.Blvd&Woodward)for 15 years.The last five or six I was there The lights would be out more often than not. I'd call downtown&they'd swear they'd get right on it.Sometimes they did sometimes not. What made me start thiking this may have been done of purpose was the way the outages would happen.The street directly in front of my home would go dark for a few days/couple of weeks but the cross streets&street parallel to mine would be lit.When lights on my street would be restored the cross streets would go dark.They'd come back after awile then the parallel street would go dark.When it happened once or twice I thought "it's a coincidence".When it starting happening regularly with an obvious pattern I began to suspect it was a cost saving measure.It wasn't just in my area either.I'd hear of reports of the lights off all along Jeffereson&other areas of the city too.It's been going on for years yet whenever I,or someone else,suggested the lights were being turned off to attempt to save money the suggestion was always dismissed.

Thank you!

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Originally Posted by rjk

....you can also get your house broken into if you have deadbolts on the door. That doesn't mean you don't use deadbolts. The point is to make it as difficult as you can for crime to take place and lighting does that.

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Low pressure sodium lamps can help with the light pollution problem. They're bright enough for security but astronomers can easily filter it out. It's an ugly yellow color though, IMHO.

Precisely and thanks for your comments! Detroiters SHOULD NOT BE OK with the imposed darkness on the freeways and streets! How one choose to light their own personal property is a separate matter: walk up your own driveway in the dark and walk into a pitch dark house too! ROTFL!

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Originally Posted by royce

Kryptonite, I believe in karma and with such a funky attitude as you have, I'm not surprised that you were a victim of crime. Your statements are ridiculous. So being in a well-lit area didn't prevent you from being a victim of crime so you think the rest of us here in Detroit should be OK in the dark and accept becoming potential crime victims? I really don't understand why you bothered expressing yourself on this thread. BTW, you do know that "kryptonite" was poisonous to Superman, right?

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I think the biggest problem is all the obsolete lighting the city installed in recent years.

Plenty of more efficient lighting technology out there. I'm starting to see motion sensing lighting as well where lights increase in brightness as a person or vehicle approaches.

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Originally Posted by Jimaz

Low pressure sodium lamps can help with the light pollution problem. They're bright enough for security but astronomers can easily filter it out. It's an ugly yellow color though, IMHO.

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Ugly looking and still fail to effectively light areas....probably the worst choice if reducing crime is a concern. A couple cities around Chicago had these, but eventually removed and replaced them.

freeway lighting is not maintained by the city of detroit but by mdot.
its true many major sections of street lighting is not working due to vandalism by scrappers. the problem is our police force can not catch the scrappers for various reasons and public lighting can't keep up. the idea of keeping the wiring from the ground up is going to keep the scrappers coming back so the power feed needs to be overhead which public lighting does do in certain areas where possible. scrap yards are to blame to a degree as well.

Last summer, PLC undertook a surprising [[for them) capital improvement project on Fort St. West between Waterman and Miller, removing all of the old streetlight lamps and in many cases also the poles, and replacing them with new/recycled poles with new cobra-head lamp fixtures, and also some new telephone-pole-mounted lamp fixtures. These have all been retrofitted with an aerial power supply strung from pole top to pole top. Not the most glamorous setup, by any means, but at least every light foundation has a pole on it now! And the scrappers can't get to the wire without a serious ladder [[hopefully a nice iron one if they decide to go for it) Of course, I can't verify that these aren't part of the rolling blackout program. :p A single old Bishop light remains in front of the old DPD Precinct at the corner of Green, but it has been disconnected. It was nice to see this investment in a stretch of road that was woefully inadequate when it came to lighting. I was surprised that the new poles they put up were not all new, but some of them were sporting some surface rust and worn battle ship gray, and were clearly being reused from somewhere else.

I've also seen other smaller lighting improvement projects around SW, mostly with the upgrading of older fixtures and poles with new lamps, along W. Vernor and elsewhere in the neighborhood of Mexicantown. I've called many times about the pole that was knocked down on the Holy Redeemer corner at Vernor and Junction, and PLC did take the old pole away [[which was lying on the sidewalk), but to my knowledge a new one has not been erected. I wish they would....it's such a busy corner with cars, buses and foot traffic, nevermind all the kids during the week and parishioners on Sundays. We'll see.

Often, the neighborhoods are lit better at night than the main thoroughfares are.

Many of the neighborhoods in Sterling Heights have absolutely no street lights on the residential streets [[only on the Mile Roads and the majors like Deq, Ryan, Mound). How does that work for them?

Don't know.... with their 'up-tick' in crime they may want to rethink that. Yea, many suburbs have less street lights per planning and infrastructure.

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Originally Posted by East Detroit

Many of the neighborhoods in Sterling Heights have absolutely no street lights on the residential streets [[only on the Mile Roads and the majors like Deq, Ryan, Mound). How does that work for them?

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on bagley street in corktown sometimes the lights are on most of the day and turn off just at dusk...

Why do blocks and large banks of lights go out at once??? The answer is that the city of Detroit often used "series lighting" in many applications. This is a method of wiring that was used primarily in the early 20s and 30s. A series of poles are wired like a strand of Christmas lights. Drwaback??? One goes out, the whole thing goes out. The other drawback is that 69,000 volts are required on these runs to power the long stretch of lights, which is way higher voltage than a standard primary line, that usually hangs 40 feet in the air on a wooden pole for residential trunklines [[4800 volts max usually). Scrappers and other malfunctions cripple the series system very easily. Funny thing is that the city still installs new components and stretches of this type of system, rather than opting for parallel lighting. Advantage? Less wiring.

many cities do turn off large portions of street lights at times to save money. i have confirmed this with dpd. others have to leave them on 24/7 to fend off copper thieves.

Solar LED streetlights = no wiring at ground level, work during blackouts due to storms. Bring on the critics.

Will Somerset Shops on Woodward three days a month and financial incentives for people to move downtown eventually spur enough revenue to keep the street lights on in outlying neighborhoods? Or would fully functioning street lights all across the city help convince people Detroit was a viable city? That's the kind of question the late Mel Ravitz used to ask at city council during debates about handing out financial incentives to businesses.