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Chicago Streetlight Modernization Program Reaches Major Milestone

Chicago Lighting Program
Chicago’s lighting initiative will replace over 270,000 existing outdated High Pressure Sodium (HPS) light fixtures with new energy-efficient LED lights and create a modern lighting management system to streamline maintenance and repairs. (Source: Chicago Smart Lighting Program)

New Estimates Find Program to Save Taxpayers More Than $100 Million Over 10 Years; More Than 42,000 New Streetlight Fixtures Have Been Installed to Date

CHICAGO—(ENEWSPF)—May 8, 2018
By: Rosemary Piser

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the latest major milestones in Chicago’s streetlight modernization program. To date more than 42,000 new streetlight fixtures have been installed. All alley, residential, and arterial streets within the West Side priority area have been completed. Crews will now shift to converting the residential streetlights and alley lights within the South Side priority area.

Chicago anticipates that it will cut its streetlight electricity costs by more than half through the modernization, yielding savings of approximately $100 million over 10 years. In addition, through ComEd’s energy efficiency incentive efforts, the City will earn ComEd rebates that subsidize the cost of converting outdated High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights to LED technology. These rebates are projected to total $35 million.

At today’s announcement, Mayor Emanuel said, “The Smart Lighting Project is great for Chicago’s environment, our neighborhoods, and our budget. By converting our city’s streetlights to LED we are modernizing Chicago’s infrastructure, creating new jobs and saving taxpayers more than $100 million over the next decade.”

The modernization program is being implemented by the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) and will replace 270,000 of Chicago’s street, alley and viaduct lights with high-quality LED fixtures during its four-year timeframe. Chicago is also installing a citywide lighting management system for the new LED lights. The system will alert the City when lights need service when it becomes operational later this year.

Streetlight fixture replacements in the first year have been focused in Chicago’s South and West Side neighborhoods with heightened public safety concerns, allowing those communities to quickly reap the benefits of higher quality, more reliable lighting. In addition, by the end of this summer, the new lights will be installed on more than a dozen major arterial routes across the city.

The City has created a website where Chicagoans can track the progress of the program.

The new lights, which are owned and operated by the City, will consume 50-75 percent less electricity than HPS lights, generating significant electricity cost savings that will offset the cost of the modernization. LED fixtures also last two-to-three times longer than HPS lights. LED lights provide better nighttime visibility, and the LED light fixtures selected by the City are “full cut-off,” meaning they are designed to project light downward where it is needed on streets and sidewalks, not into the night sky.

“The installations of new LED lights are moving quickly across the City, and we are now shifting our crews back to the South Side to continue the work that we started there last fall,” CDOT Commissioner Rebekah Scheinfeld said. “We are moving steadily toward or goal of providing clearer, more reliable and energy efficient lighting in every Chicago neighborhood.”

“This project demonstrates how the expertise of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust can drive community investments that provide a maximum return for City residents and improve the quality of life in Chicago’s neighborhoods,” Chicago Treasurer and CIT Chair Kurt Summers said. “We look forward to continuing our work on initiatives like that that will create equitable economic development in our neighborhoods in the years to come.”

Source: www.cityofchicago.org

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