A record number of streetlights are out across Los Angeles, posing concern for safety in areas impacted by outages. Joel Grover reports for the NBC4 News on May 16, 2024.
A record number of streetlights are out across Los Angeles, the NBC4 I-Team has found, and some blocks in commercial and residential areas are now completely dark.
“This is a public safety issue,” said Estela Lopez, who runs the Downtown LA Industrial District, where she says 40 percent of the streetlights are out.
"These dark streets are perfect, G-d forbid, to attack someone or to rob someone,” Lopez told the I-Team as she drove down pitch-dark streets around downtown LA.
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The I-Team has received tips from viewers across the city, complaining that the lights have been out in their neighborhoods for months, and even after calling 311, they’re still not fixed. The I-Team found streets with all the lights out in the Valley, in Mid Wilshire, and in heavily trafficked and popular areas around the Crypto.Com Arena and the LA Convention Center.
And, we found all the lights out in the blocks surrounding Ninth Street Elementary School.
"I worry about who is lurking here in the dark," Estela Lopez said.
Of the 223,000 streetlights in LA, 25,890 of them are currently not working. That's a record number, according to LA’s Bureau of Street Lighting.
Residents of some neighborhoods, like on one block near Larchmont Village, are especially angry because they agreed to pay an extra $500-a-year fee for ten years starting in 2015 to get new streetlights, but now those lights aren’t working.
"It feels so dangerous, I won’t even walk my dog on the street at night since there’s no light here," said resident David Schneiderman.
Streetlights do have a direct impact on crime rates, according to studies reviewed by the I-Team. One done by researchers at four Universities, including the University of Chicago Crime Lab, found that street “lighting reduces outdoor nighttime crimes by approximately 36 percent."
“Bad guys are always looking for an advantage, and darkness is an advantage,” said Estela Lopez.
A lot of the outages are due to vandalism, according to the LA Bureau of Street Lighting. Two weeks ago, I-Team uncovered how some homeless people divert power from streetlights to encampments.
And, increasingly, thieves steal valuable copper wire from streetlights and resell it as scrap metal. Theft of copper wire from streetlights went up 800% from 2017-2023, according to the Bureau of Street Lighting
When the I-Team asked the Bureau of Street Lighting how long it takes to fix a broken or vandalized light once it’s reported to the city, they responded the wait time is “unknown.”
But the I-Team found evidence that it could take a year or longer for the city to fix some lights, and the Bureau of Street Lighting did not dispute that.
“To not get these lights fixed for a year, is outrageous,” LA resident David Schneiderman told NBC4.
The Director of LA Street Lighting, Miguel Sangalang told the I-Team, “We are not satisfied” with a one-year wait time, but the problem is he needs about 100 more workers to deal with the backlog of repair requests.
“We would need more boots on the ground to achieve that."
He said the city is trying to prevent future theft and vandalism of copper wires by buring them deeper in the ground.
And, the city is conducting a pilot program in Van Nuys, trying solar streetlights that don’t have copper wires.
But that’s little satisfaction to residents waiting for the lights to be fixed on their pitch-dark streets.
"This is a world class city… but we’re not maintaining it in a way that makes our own residents feel safe,” said Estela Lopez.
