"They Couldn't Bring A Couple Bulbs With Them?"
That's what a friend of Gregg's in Michigan said about the audit Detroit is performing on the street lights. They sent people around to count how many street lights were out, she told Gregg. But they're just checking, not doing anything about it now.
From the Freep, Eric D. Lawrence writes:
Crews began a pilot project today in two neighborhoods -- one on the east side in the area of Gratiot and East State Fair, and one on the west side in the area of McNichols and Southfield. The crews are auditing the approximately 3,300 streetlights in each neighborhood to prepare for lighting improvements in those areas and eventually citywide.Crews will be checking the condition, location and types of streetlights in the neighborhoods over the coming days and weeks. Workers will have to return to the areas at night to see whether the lights are working.
The pilot project neighborhoods were chosen because of population and -- at least in the case of the east-side neighborhood -- because of the high crime rate.
Odis Jones, the public lighting authority's executive director, said the plan is to have lighting improvements completed in the pilot neighborhoods by the first part of 2014. Although the initial phase is limited in scope, the effort will expand, he said.
"We needed to get going, given the problem is so vast," Jones said. "The way you eat an elephant is a bite at a time."
It's a fair question - but it's not the answer.
Most of the Detroit street lights that are out are out because the copper wiring has been stolen from the light poles.
One inventive joker just finally got caught and sentenced.
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/08/23/detroit-man-caught-stealing-copper-from-light-poles/
His trick, as I am told, was to remove the access panel at the base of the pole, attach a rope and hook to the wiring, hook the other end of the rope to his vehicle and drive away. All with the wiring live, mind you. The wire would snap at the junction boxes and he'd pull 40-80 feet of wire out of the pole. Also burn out the wiring in the junction box and sometimes start a fire. And he'd do this all night, all around the city. One DPD estimate said that up to 40% of the freeway lights that were out at any given time in Detroit were down to this one actor.
So it's not just a new bulb - the poles need the wire replaced, service wiring and junction boxes repaired, and oftentimes more work at substations and distribution boxes. Stealing $10-worth of copper wire can cause thousands of $$$ in repairs, requiring speciality contractors with expensive equipment.
And with the city presently in bankruptcy court, and proposing to pay unsecured creditors somewheres between 0 and 10¢ on the dollar, if I were a contractor like that, I wouldn't even bid the work.
llater,
llamas
llamas at October 24, 2013 3:04 AM
"The way you eat an elephant is a bite at a time."
Who the hell eats elephants? At some point, I would imagine the remaining meat would go bad before you finished such a large quantity of meat.
Patrick at October 24, 2013 4:09 AM
Most of the Detroit street lights that are out are out because the copper wiring has been stolen from the light poles.
Boy, the citizens of Detroit must really miss Robocop.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 24, 2013 7:25 AM
Llamas has the right of it.
And what no one is even willing to mention, is that without putting a complete stop to the Scrap Copper Thieves, this whole project is simply good money after bad.
But to mention anything about the people doing the theft-ing, is to touch the Third Rail in America.
I fully expect that much money will be spent to fix the lights, and more theft will occur, and the cycle will repeat until Detroit is abandoned.
Nothing in Detroit is going to improve.
Thomas
thomas at October 24, 2013 12:48 PM
llamas is right, and even with something simple like light bulb replacement, driving a cherry picker around town is a whole lot more complicated than doing a survey from the ground.
Isab at October 24, 2013 6:14 PM
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