Title
Resolution Concerning the Need for Reliability Improvements and Technical Upgrades for DTE Streetlights
Body
Whereas, The City of Ann Arbor has established several policies including Vision Zero (zero fatalities and severe injuries on the City's streets), A2 Zero (achieving a ju??st transition to community-wide carbon neutrality by 2030), and a dark skies ordinance;
Whereas, Reliable, efficient and compliant streetlighting is an important component of meeting the City's goals in all these areas;
Whereas, The Ann Arbor School District, as part of its Safe Routes to School Program, encourages school children to walk to school and eliminated some bus stops in 2021 with the intention of increasing the number of students who walk to school;
Whereas, Detroit Edison has more than 5,200 streetlights within the City of Ann Arbor, a sizable majority of the overall streetlights;
Whereas, The Council passed a resolution in 2020 noting its concern with sustained DTE streetlight outages and directing staff to send to DTE, the Michigan Public Service Commission, and the City's elected delegation to the State Legislature a quarterly reports on streetlight reliability within the City of Ann Arbor;
Whereas, While coordination between the City staff and DTE have improved in recent years, these regular contacts have not lead to an observable improvement in overall streetlight reliability as evidenced by the fact DTE repaired more outages on their system in 2021 (1,413 total or 27.0%) compared to 2020 (1,397 total 26.7%);
Whereas, Despite the work undertaken by staff in 2020 and 2021 to regularly communicate with DTE regarding these outages, there are examples of DTE taking more than 10 days after the first report that a streetlight is out to even request a permit for the work necessary and prolonged outages on routes with heavy pedestrian traffic;
Whereas, LED streetlights use less energy, have a longer lifespan, and are less costly to maintain than high-press...
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