Shining a Light on the Plan

After successfully relighting all 139 square miles of the city in less than three years, the PLA’s mission has shifted to keeping the lights on and focusing on excellent customer service. We repaired more than 5,551 streetlights in 2018 and have consistently met our goal of keeping the city bright with an average of 99.5 percent of the streetlights working at any given time. Through our plan, we have implemented a technologically advanced a public lighting system that has achieved the safety, quality and reliability that this city deserves.

The PLA, which has made Detroit a national leader in modern city lighting, is not only keeping Detroiters safe, but also creating jobs and investing in residents. Employing Detroiters and utilizing resources within the City of Detroit is one of our top priorities. Today, 85 percent of the PLA’s vendors were based in the city, and of the contractors who completed the original PLA project, 63 percent were Detroit-based businesses.

Discover our Mission

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. The new lights in neighborhoods are 150-watt equivalent LED lights, twice as bright as the 75-watt equivalent High Pressure Sodium Lights that were the standard under the old system. The LED lights are also much more energy efficient than the High Pressure Sodium lights.