It was a dark and stormy … stretch of road: Bridge burnout

| Utilities | West Seattle news

More than a few people have e-mailed to ask why so many street lights are burned out – and have been for some time – along The Bridge; in the past few days, we’ve also heard about a particularly unlit stretch of South Delridge. Two things to share: First, we have the question out to Seattle City Light‘s communications team, which so far has learned that the person in charge of “operations” for this area has just convened a meeting on the subject; as soon as info from said meeting – what’s going to be done and when – is available, we’ll report it. Meantime, don’t ever assume the city “knows” a light is out; this SCL page has options for how to report them.

10:39 AM UPDATE: We’ve learned from City Councilmember Tom Rasmussen‘s staff that he too has been pursuing this with SDOT and City Light, which for starters has told Rasmussen that “a re-lamping effort” is in the works later this month for the Spokane Street Viaduct stretch of The Bridge (99 to I-5), and the councilmember expects work to be done on the high bridge’s lights then too.

RobertSeattle January 9, 2009 (9:46 am)

“just convened a meeting on the subject” – eyes roll…

Mr. JT January 9, 2009 (9:48 am)

How many city employees does it take to screw in a light bulb ?

WSB January 9, 2009 (9:52 am)

RS, usually I would just wait till the results of said meeting are in, before even bothering to report it. However, I have been pursuing this one for days, while inquiries continue to roll in, so thought I’d at least give a progress report – TR

Jim January 9, 2009 (10:28 am)

I’ve noticed that the lane markings on the bridge are completely gone. It’s easy enough to guess where the lanes are when its dry, but when wet, or icy…. Be aware of what other drivers are doing, they may not know where to drive.

GreenSpaces January 9, 2009 (10:45 am)

One of my neighbors spent hours going around the High Point neighborhood and submitted a detailed list and a MAP by mail (he was told there was no online or email way of doing this) of all of the lights out in this area, and we still have seen no change. And that was about 3 months ago. I had the HOA mgr send me the list and I am going to report every single one via the link you provided on the last post regarding this subject.

WSB January 9, 2009 (10:50 am)

Wow, sorry to hear someone said there was no way to do that online or via e-mail. We have been to at least two community-group meetings in the past few months at which City Light’s Mike Eagan (the communications-team member we’re working with on info about this) has made the “how to report burned-out street lights” presentation. Last May, it was in our wrapup from the Delridge District Council meeting:
https://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=7813
and then in July, the Southwest District Council
https://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=8723
at which time he said the city had upped its average response time to burned-out light calls, to five days.

No More Same Old Same Old January 9, 2009 (11:28 am)

FYI – At least a year ago I filed an online report with City Light regarding the large number of lights out on The Bridge and Spokane Street Via-Duct. At that time it didn’t seem like my report resulted in any bulb replacement. I would rather they just turn the whole circuit OFF if they can’t keep up with replacing the burn-out bulbs as the transition from lit area to unlit area when driving in the rain and dark is worse than having them all OFF. There is an old joke about City Light. It starts off with; What Is Big and Yellow and Sleeps Four? I’ll leave the punch line to the imagination….

yumpears January 9, 2009 (12:39 pm)

Since we have all gotten used to driving the bridge without so many lights maybe for the sake of conservation/saving money they could just put a light in every other lamp? I’m all for a “re-lamping effort” but I’m not sure we need 80 more lights on…

Steph January 9, 2009 (12:47 pm)

I emailed them about the Delridge outage and they responed! Their response is below.

Thank you for reporting this streetlight problem. Your trouble ticket

Confirmation number is – D443396

Our crews are usually able to complete routine repairs within 7 to 10 days. However during the high-volume months of October through February, routine repairs may take longer – up to 8 weeks.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve you. Our contact number is (206) 684-7056.

City Light

Customer Care Division

Aim January 9, 2009 (3:31 pm)

Considering that the lane markers were scraped off the roads by snowplows AND the lights are out, it is very, very difficult to drive both of these stretches of road safely in the dark (which includes heavy commute hours in morning AND evening)

Is there any way to request that the urgency of these items be upgraded, considering the dual issues combining for some seriously dangerous driving? BEFORE someone gets killed?

P January 9, 2009 (4:38 pm)

I emailed the WSB, last Sunday evening while driving very slowly to West Seattle from work I counted 88 out lights on the bridge. I was actually shocked at the amount of out bulbs. Also, last spring I did a slow drive one nice night on 35th Ave SW from Raymond to 106th and took down every out pole and turned them into City Light via their online reporting system. Most of them have yet to be replaced.

Aaron Cooke January 9, 2009 (6:04 pm)

It’s not just the West Seattle Bridge. When I noticed how many burned out lights there were I started paying more attention. The burned out lights problem is all over the city.

Does Seattle have some sort of program for keeping stretches of road dark in order to cut down on light pollution and conserve energy?

If not, my hunch is that the city simply can’t afford to replace the burned out bulbs fast enough. Or, they don’t have the manpower to get them replaced.

MargL January 9, 2009 (6:14 pm)

I’ve noticed lights that aren’t actually burnt out – they just turn off and on randomly. I always wondered if that was a power saving feature, or an indication of it about to burn out. Usually I notice them when I’m sitting at a stop-light and a street light near by goes off.

bolo January 10, 2009 (1:01 am)

I had heard that streetlamp bulb replacement has been outsourced from Seattle City Light for some time. They had been wanting to change from the ‘replace the bulbs as they burn out” mode to a “replace them in blocks” preventive maintenance mode. Supposed to be much less expensive, but the crews are working their way up from the south end of the city so it may be a while. Seems like they aren’t trying so hard to replace the burned out ones that are scattered about, away from their current section.

Lamps that sporadically go off and on when they should be consistently lit are dying.

Ron January 10, 2009 (10:21 pm)

Down thru the years I have lived in WS I have phoned City Light when the street lights are out and they have usually responded in about a week or less. If a light is out on your block it affects you more than it does them so why is it such a big problem for YOU to make the call. They certainly aren’t going to replace it if they don’t know it’s burned out. Replacing lights on the bridge is a different matter, it needs to be done during the night when traffic is light unless you want it done 8 AM Monday morning. I don’t think so!

Joe Grande January 11, 2009 (7:30 am)

Back in September 2008, I wrote the director of City Light about the lighting problem on the West Seattle High Rise Bridge and the University Bridge. The University Bridge is worse than the West Seattle High Rise Bridge as it has ALL the lights out and no response from City Light in over a year. I was not pleased with the response I got from City Light so I then forwarded that response to ALL the members of the City Council. Only one Councilmember chose to response, (Councilmember Rasmussen’s office continually does not respond to e-mails). The following is the response I received from Richard McIver in November. As you can read, there appears to be a turf dispute between City Light and SDOT. I wrote back to Councilmember McIver suggesting they fire both directors and hire two ADULTS to run these departments. This continuing problem, coupled with the recent snow removal fiasco should be enough reason to turn out of office the Mayor and most of the current City Council come November.

————– Original message ————–
From: “Richard McIver” <Richard.McIver@Seattle.Gov

Mr. Grande,

I appreciate your taking the time to email my City Council colleagues and me regarding the failure of Seattle City Light to respond to your complaints about street lights. I received another such email a week or so earlier about the same issue elsewhere in the city. I forwarded both to City Light and got a response that indicates they are aware of the problem on both the University and West Seattle bridges and are working to resolve the problems.

They say that the University Bridge has been a source of many complaints for over a year and they are working with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and hope to have it resolved by July. They say the old wiring failed many years ago and that SDOT ran overhead wire as a temporary fix about 40 years ago! However, they contend that the Metro trolleys have torn down the wire and two mast arms, but that they cannot replace it the way it was because of changes to the National Electrical Safety Code. SDOT owns the bridge and has agreed to include the necessary upgrades for street lighting to an existing contract that includes other improvements to the bridge.

There are apparently similar jurisdictional issues on the West Seattle Bridge. City Light contends that SDOT will only allow City Light to work on the bridge on short sections of the single lanes for about two hours on weekdays. To complete the work under this schedule would take them 22 consecutive work days, and that is simply too expensive. However, they have agreed to give City Light access on a Sunday for a ten hour stretch, and the work is now scheduled for a Sunday in late January. They expect to do it all in one session.

While I don’t understand why these apparent conflicts haven’t been resolved earlier, I would hope the problems will be addressed as they’ve outlined. Maintaining street lights on such busy bridges should be a matter of public safety.

Richard J. McIver
Seattle City Council

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