SAN DIEGO — Mayor Todd Gloria along with other local and congressional leaders talked about the $3.5 million in federal funding that was secured to help repair streetlights in the city. The infrastructure repairs will take place in Pacific Beach, Point Loma, and Logan Heights. They made the announcement on the corner of Fanuel Street and Emerald Street in Pacific Beach where the streetlights are currently not working.
According to a press release, Representatives Peters and Vargas helped secure the funds in the Fiscal Year 2023 federal appropriations bill, which passed in December 2022.
The City of San Diego has more than 50 series circuits citywide that are well over 70 years old. The city describes the type of electrical infrastructure as “obsolete, unreliable and in dire need of replacement.” They added, that when issues occur on these particular circuits, it affects all the streetlights on the circuit. This in turn results in a high number of streetlight outages at a single time. Mayor Gloria said, "Many of us may remember growing up, old fashioned Christmas tree lights, where one would go out then the whole string wouldn't work. This is what that is. Unfortunately, many of our city streetlights operate on those series circuits, where when one goes out, they all go out." He added, "The funding to fix them, it isn't just a lightbulb, it is a whole rewiring. And of course the time it takes, the city has to go out and check each and every light. It takes a lot of time."
The group said that the funds awarded through the Congressmembers will assist efforts to replace the aging series circuit infrastructure to improve the reliability of streetlights and lower the City's maintenance effort.
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