Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot has recently announced that the City of Chicago has substantially completed the Chicago Smart Lighting Program (CSLP), a massive streetlight modernization project that has improved the quality of night-time visibility throughout the city and is projected to save Chicago taxpayers $100 million in electricity costs over the next ten years. City officials cut the ribbon for the project, primarily executed by the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT), at the Lyon’s View Manufacturing plant in K-Town on the West Side, where more than half the lights were assembled by Chicago residents.
Mayor Lightfoot said, “Our smart lighting program will shine a clearer and crisper light on our streets and sidewalks to allow pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers to see other people and objects. Aside from significantly enhancing public safety, this program has also created jobs for some of our most vulnerable residents, is helping us achieve our climate goal of reducing our carbon footprint, and will deliver major, long-term savings for the City.”
The modernization project involves converting more than 280,000 outdated, hazy orange High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) streetlights, about 85% of the City’s streetlight stock, to high-efficiency LED lights.
