Milwaukee's street lights are about to get significantly brighter as the Department of Public Works works to upgrade 54,000 street lights to LED bulbs by next year.
DPW is upgrading some of its circuits to be LED-compatible.
Many of the city's 77,000 street lights and 10,000 alley lights are on series circuits that date back to the early 1900s.
These circuits, the DPW website notes, "send constant current to each street light at a higher voltage. Similar to old-fashioned holiday string lights, if one light goes out or if there is a fault in the circuit, all street lights after the faulty pathway will not receive any power. Series circuits cannot support LED lights due to high voltage operation."
The remainder of the lights are on multiple circuits, which, the site explains, "a lower voltage circuit connection with constant voltage for each street light. If one light goes out or if there is a fault in the circuit, the street lights on the unfaulty pathway will continue working. Multiple circuits can support LED lights."
Thus, the city is working to switch eligible series circuits to multiple circuits.
By doing this, it says, the streets will be brighter, there will be fewer outages and as the LEDs use less electricity, they'll save energy and money, and cut carbon emissions.
My neighborhood has been changed out already and the lights to me seem to provide brighter, but more focused light in a tight area, though sometimes areas between lamp posts can feel a little dark.
Street lights in Milwaukee do not follow the grid pattern of the streets, but DPW has a handy online map that shows which types of circuits are in your neighborhood. You can access it here.
The map will be updated as the circuits are changed.
If a street light is out, you can alert the DPW online here or call (414) 286-CITY. If multiple blocks of street lights are out don't report it online, instead call the phone number immediately.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
