DETROIT – The Public Lighting Authority (PLA) has begun installation of new street lights on Livernois Avenue of Fashion, stretching from St. Martins to Clarita, a segment that has been dark for decades. Today, workers have installed the first nine of 53 new steel poles on the Avenue.

PLA Chief Executive Officer, Odis Jones said the installation of the new lights on Livernois shows that the PLA is “continuing our progress in providing the citizens and business owners with the lighting they deserve.  With lights not working on the Avenue of Fashion – one of the City’s most historic business districts – for years, clearly we are on our way to reversing decades of disinvestment in the City’s street lights.”

Working in sections, residents and business owners can expect to see additional poles installed tomorrow, workers installing wiring next week, and the first section of new LED lights fully operational by the end of next week. The construction of the remaining phases is set to be completed with the Avenue of shops fully relit by September 30, 2015.

The construction process on Livernois consists installing new foundations, new poles, new luminaires, new wiring and new circuits. Once the new lights are installed, the old lights will be removed. The new lights are 250-watt equivalent LED lights.

As the PLA rebuilds the City’s street lighting system, it has a goal of completing all neighborhood and collector streets by the end of 2015.  The installation of street lights citywide, which began in February 2014, is significantly ahead of schedule.

About the Public Lighting Authority of Detroit

The Public Lighting Authority (PLA) is a state-created authority whose mission is to improve, modernize and maintain all street lights in the City of Detroit with brighter, more reliable, more energy efficient lights.  It is a completely separate legal entity from the City of Detroit.  The Authority is overseen by a five-member board that is appointed by the Mayor and the City Council.  All five board members are residents of Detroit.

Before the PLA started its work, approximately 40 percent of the street lights in Detroit didn’t work. The PLA’s goal is to complete relighting all neighborhoods in Detroit by the end of 2015 and all major thoroughfares by the end of 2016 with 65,000 new LED street lights. If residents need to report a new street light outage, please contact the Authority at (313) 324-8290 or toll free (844)LIGHT313.

For more information, visit pladetroit.org, facebook or on Twitter.