The city of San Diego plans to upgrade to a more modern streetlight system at two locations using $3.5 million in federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grants.
The funding will pay for streetlight repairs on Garnet Avenue and Logan Avenue, priority locations identified by the city’s Transportation Department as part of the Light Up San Diego Streetlight Improvement Program.
“This additional grant funding will greatly improve our ability to provide modern, reliable lighting to the Pacific Beach and Logan Heights communities,” said Bethany Bezak, director of department, adding that the projects and other ongoing work, “will have a significant impact in reducing future outages and the backlog of streetlights needing repair.”
The new parallel lighting system, in which each streetlight is individually connected to a power source, will replace lighting systems originally installed in the 1920s which are now unreliable and continue to incur high maintenance costs.
The new systems will improve mobility, accessibility and safety for both pedestrians and vehicle traffic, according to the city.
The scope of both projects includes furnishing all labor, materials, equipment, design services and construction, including trenching, installing new electrical conduits and circuits, pull boxes, poles, light fixtures and more to upgrade existing systems to low voltage parallel circuit systems.
Converting all streetlights from incandescent, induction and high-pressure sodium bulbs to LED also will help decarbonize city infrastructure as part of the City of San Diego Climate Action Plan. By switching to energy-efficient lights, energy consumption would be reduced, moving the city closer to achieving climate action targets.
The current budget estimate for the Logan Avenue conversion is $1.885 million, comprising 29 streetlights. The budget estimate for the Garnet Avenue conversion is just over $5 million, for 77 streetlights. Both projects are expected to be in the design phase for two years and construction for another two years.
After being heard at the Active Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the grant funding item will go before City Council for approval.
According to the city, there are 40 other locations in need of such circuit system replacements.