SIOUX FALLS, SD (KELO-AM) - The roads around Sioux Falls are about to get a little brighter. That's according to City Power and Light Superintendent Jerry Jongeling. “Over time, the goal is to replace all of the city’s street lights with Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights, but the plan is to complete this work in a systematic way so that all of the street lights are the same by area,” says Jongeling. He says it all leads to safer streets, less maintenance and a big savings for taxpayers. The estimate is that taxpayers will see a 46 percent savings, when compared to traditional High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lights. That really adds up, when the City has over 19 thousand lights, and 500 new units added each year. The City received a grant to retrofit a handful of lights, and has been pleased with results. So far, there's over 400 in city limits.
Jongeling says all new lighting will be LED, such as new developments at Lake Lorraine and at the I-29/229 interchange reconstruction.
“Over time, the goal is to replace all of the city’s street lights with LED lights, but the plan is to complete this work in a systematic way so that all of the streetlights are the same by area,” says Jerry Jongeling, Light and Power Superintendent. “We want great light in neighborhoods because it creates community and increases safety for our citizens, so we also encourage residents to let us know when a street light isn’t working properly or additional light in an area could be useful.”
If you’re outside making sure each of your holiday lights is working properly, take a look at street,too and report any street light outages. Outages can be reported by calling 605-373-6979, Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., or online at www.siouxfalls.org/streetlight.
To help the Public Works Electric Light Division in locating and repairing nonfunctioning street lights in the quickest manner possible, please be sure to identify the location of the light pole as precisely as you can. Provide a house number or intersection that is directly adjacent to the pole with the outage. Lights on arterial streets have an identification number plate on the pole. For more information, call 605-373-6979.