Title
Resolution Concerning the City’s Streetlight System, Prioritization of Equipment Upgrades, and Improvements to Outage Reporting and Minimizing Repair Times
Body
Whereas, Illumination at crosswalks is critical to pedestrian safety at night and a key component of a pedestrian-friendly community;
Whereas, The City of Ann Arbor has adopted several policies including Vision Zero (zero fatalities and severe injuries on the City's streets) and A2 Zero (achieving a just transition to community-wide carbon neutrality by 2030);
Whereas, Reliable, efficient and compliant streetlighting is an important component of meeting the City’s goals in all these areas;
Whereas, There are approximately 8,360 streetlights in the City, of which 63% are owned and operated by Detroit Edison with the remaining 37% being owned and operated by the City;
Whereas, LED streetlights use less energy, have a longer life, and are less costly to operate and maintain than high-pressure sodium or mercury vapor streetlights;
Whereas, of the 3,130+ City-owned streetlights, 92% of the luminaires are light emitting diode (LED), 6% are high pressure sodium (HPS), and 2% are mercury vapor (MV);
Whereas, DTE has provided the City with an updated estimate to upgrade all DTE-owned streetlights to LED at a cost of approximately $1.5 Million;
Whereas, The City and DTE each track streetlight outages and in addition to receiving reports of outages through A2FixIt, emails, phone calls, or other means, and the City and DTE both perform night patrols to proactively identify streetlight outages;
Whereas, All reports of outages on DTE streetlights received by the City are provided to DTE and City staff regularly meet and communicate with DTE staff to prioritize, discuss and track outages, including outages at sensitive locations and those recurring at the same location;
Whereas, It is the City’s goal to repair City-owned streetlight outages within 72 hours of the report, or from clearing MISS DIG, if required; and
Whereas, City staff have begun implementing “smart city” technologies in several projects to evaluate whether it can provide faster information on streetlight outages, reliability improvements, and cost efficiencies;
RESOLVED, That City staff will continue to collaborate with DTE and UM to develop a proactive system to identify streetlight outages and improve response times;
RESOLVED, That City staff will inform City Council during the FY 2023 budget development process what it would cost to upgrade all City-owned and DTE-owned streetlights to LED;
RESOLVED, That City staff will inform City Council during the FY 2023 budget development process what it would cost to scale the connected “smart city” streetlights pilot to at least 10% of the City’s streetlights with an emphasis on downtown and major arterials with high pedestrian activity;
RESOLVED, That City staff will report quarterly for the next three years on all known streetlight outages on both City-owned and DTE-owned streetlights that lasted for more than five consecutive days; and
RESOLVED, That the City Administrator be authorized to take any other necessary administrative actions to implement this resolution.
Sponsored by: Councilmembers Griswold and Briggs