Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced an initiative that will retrofit over 270,000 street and park lights in the city, upgrading from high pressure sodium (HPS) lamps to LEDs. The new lights will come at no cost to taxpayers because the new lamps use between 50% and 75% less energy and last around three years longer than HPS, which will provide savings that will finance the project.
The upgrade will also include a new management system for outdoor lighting, providing real-time updates on failures and needed maintenance, an improvement over the resident reporting-based system currently in place. The program will cover about 85% of all outdoor lighting in the city of Chicago, with common fixture types targeted first.
“By bringing our outdoor lighting into the 21st century, we will make our streets, sidewalks, alleys, and bike paths safer and improve the quality of life throughout Chicago’s neighborhoods. New lights will provide more reliable and continued nighttime visibility, giving communities a greater sense of safety. The process to achieve this for our communities may be complex, but improving our streetlights while creating jobs and strengthening our neighborhoods is a no brainer,” says Mayor Emanuel.
Considering an outdoor lighting upgrade of your own? Check out how these projects utilized LEDs for big savings!
