Calgary addresses streetlight outages with change to maintenance services
Posted Dec 1, 2022 3:55 pm.
Last Updated Dec 1, 2022 3:56 pm.
Calgary streetlight outages are being addressed with a change to a service provider that will start by mid-2023, the city announced Thursday.
Streetlight maintenance services include assessment and repairs of reported outages for Calgary’s 104,000 luminaires or lighting units.
The city is switching to Iconic Power Systems, which will be the sole provider of street light maintenance services for the city, which also started Thursday.
The maintenance provider has been working with local electric company Enmax to transition since November.
It is the city’s “hope” that the new provider will provide an improvement to the street light responses by next year.
“As with many things, the pandemic has had an effect on our ability to perform repairs to our streetlights, which resulted in a slight increase in response times to street light outages in 2022,” said Ravi Seera, manager of Mobility Operations in a statement.
“Thankfully, our supply issues have been resolved, and we believe the change in service provider will reduce the response time by the middle of 2023.”
Street lighting accounts for approximately 12 per cent of all electricity consumption in Calgary.
The city has also hired an additional private contractor to help deal with the backlogs caused by delays.
Catalytic converter theft drew quick streetlight repair
A Calgarian was attacked by someone with a reciprocating saw while trying to stop the theft of a catalytic converter in November.
The person, a driver with Calgary Italian Bakery, confronted the would-be thieves when one of them attacked the driver with the reciprocating saw they were using to cut the converter from the truck.
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Louis Bontorin, co-owner of the bakery, says he told the city over six months ago that the streetlights around his business were not turning on at night and grew increasingly frustrated by it.
He adds he called 311 to mention the faulty street lights again after the first time a catalytic converter was stolen from his business weeks ago.
In a follow-up, he emailed CityNews to say the city fixed the street lights that were out after the story was published.
The city encourages people to report issues at Calgary.ca/streetlights.
