With public safety, Vision and river task forces’ work more or less complete, Tulsa city councilors worried about dark spots along streets and highways have started a street lighting task force.
Streets and Stormwater Director Terry Ball told them Thursday crews and contractors are making progress on backlogged repairs and new damage. In all, 155,000 feet of copper wiring have been stolen from city street lights. Streets and Stormwater Director Terry Ball said that’s made them repurpose Improve Our Tulsa funding.
"The 2014 money, the way it was identified was try to come in and start fixing the system and fixing some of the damages that we already had," Ball said. "Well, now we're having to take this money and fix damages that we hadn't planned on. So, in the background, we still have about $1.5 million of repairs."
Ball is hoping Improve Our Tulsa funding for the work can be moved up from 2019 to next fiscal year.
Another thing he’d like to do is get electrical meters into the light system so the city pays only for the electricity it uses.
"We're paying a fee, the same fee, whether the lights are going or not, and one of the things we're wanting to do with this is to start breaking these light systems up and meter them," Ball said. "And that way, we only pay for the actual electrical usage that we have."
The long-term plan is to upgrade to LEDs, which use less energy, last longer, and can be controlled and monitored remotely.
"Each one would have a sensor on the head that actually, if somebody came and cut a circuit, it would show you where that cut was made, and you could dispatch the police at that point," Ball said.
City workers are replacing stolen copper wiring with aluminum, which is far less valuable as scrap metal. They’ve posted warnings for thieves, who still cut into the wires but haven’t stolen it.
Some good news: Most of lights along the Gilcrease Expressway from Tisdale to U.S. 75 and along Highway 11 from Harvard to Yale are back on.
