Detroit’s plan to relight residential blocks, alleyways

Thousands of residential blocks in Detroit will get additional streetlights under a plan unveiled by Mayor Mary Sheffield. 

The mayor on Thursday signed an executive order directing the Public Lighting Authority to prioritize critical citywide lighting improvements, making good on an effort she championed as  City Council president and promised to address on the mayoral campaign trail to improve public safety and quality of life.

The initiative will launch with a series of April community meetings across the city. The installation of at least 3,000 new mid-block street lights across all seven council districts is expected to get underway in the summer. 

Sheffield said that the change is among “my most urgent priorities” and “Detroiters deserve to feel safe walking in their own neighborhood.”

Sheffield held a public rollout of the plan on a residential street in City Council District 3 near the home of Detroiter Cynthia Loggins, who said news of the project is “restoring my peace of mind by restoring the light on my street.” 

The project is made possible by a $1 million budget allocation. PLA will cover the capital costs and the cost of powering and maintaining the new lights. 

The Public Lighting Authority was created in 2014 as a means of carrying out a key quality- of- life initiative during Detroit’s historic bankruptcy. It stood up at a time when about 40% of the city’s then-88,000 streetlights didn’t work. The relighting project covered about 65,000 LED lights between neighborhoods and main roadways. It also didn’t come without challenges; millions of the LED lights manufactured by Leotek Electronics USA began going dark ahead of their lifespan, prompting legal action from the city and a $4 million settlement. The defective lights were replaced by September 2019. 

Public Lighting Authority Director Beau Taylor addressed the city’s lighting transformation during a March 13 budget hearing, noting the grid rebuild in 2014 was designed to meet national standards and restore uniform lighting across main corridors and intersections. But some residential areas still had gaps that have left them inadequately lit or they lost streetlights during the replacement project and never saw them replaced. 

“The city was lit to a national standard (under the project) before, but unfortunately that national standard didn’t take into account things that weren’t driving related, that weren’t road related, the multiplier effects of how light makes people feel safe in their homes,” Taylor said. “That’s a public safety issue that’s unique to Detroit. Now that we have more resources available, more capacity and a system in a sustainable fashion, the PLA, in the next year, will revise our lighting plan.”

Every year, he said, Sheffield and the council have said, “we want lights in the residential areas.” 

“Now we’re going to get it. I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. I can’t wait to get started,” Taylor told council members.

Detroit City Council President James Tate Jr. said in a statement that the mid-block work is “essential” for communities and it reflects what residents have shared that they needed for years. Tate vowed that as the engagement process takes place, the council will work with the administration to ensure the final plan reflects community priorities. 

Before the lighting plan is finalized, the city and PLA will host community input sessions to allow residents to review existing lighting data and give input on where additional mid-block lighting is most needed. 

After the engagement period concludes, a final plan will be presented to the PLA board and City Council for approval in June. If approved, installation of the first lights is expected to begin in early July, with a goal of completing Phase 1 installations by November 2026. 

Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Coleman A. Young II raised another area where lighting is lacking for residents: alleyways. 

Young noted during the March 13 budget session that the responsibility of addressing dark alleys has often fallen upon Detroiters themselves and pressed Taylor on whether changes are in store there, too.

“Is the policy still that citizens have to pay for that? What can we do to change that?” he asked.

Council Member Renata Miller added that some residents enter their homes through alleys and pay out of their own pockets for alley lights. Miller said the practice is unfair and she believes that residents should be reimbursed for the cost. 

Taylor agreed that the alley light issue in Detroit is “a close second” to mid-block lighting concerns and told Young and the other council members that the alleyway policy is “about to change.”

When PLA was created, a decision was made while Detroit was in bankruptcy to no longer have alley lights. Those lights, he said, exist behind homes and some alleys aren’t clean and the lights are located on power lines. Complicating matters further, he said, is the location of the lights creates an overlap with DTE Energy.

“There’s an opportunity (now) because DTE is rebuilding a lot of their power lines through the city. As they rebuild power lines, it would be ideal for us to identify where there’s overlap and where we want alley lights and to have that done in coordination with them rebuilding their utility network. That is our plan, to work with them and to identify areas where we absolutely need alley lights.

“It is a grueling process because it’s not as apparent as a mid-block light. It’s a historic issue in the city because the alley lights were there initially because the garbage was picked up behind the houses. When they stopped picking up the garbage behind the houses, those alleyways went by the wayside for a number of years and those alley lights stayed on until they burned out,” he said. 

But now that Detroit’s financially more stable, it is time to “circle back and look at issues that happened during bankruptcy and correct them, not act like you’re just stuck with them.” He said alleyway and mid-block lighting both are issues that Taylor and his department is focused on addressing.

“We want to, we wanted to, and we will,” he said. “We’re on your team with this one and we’ll get it done.”