Island’s Street Lights Are Out –
Survey Finds 40% Dark at Night
$1.4 Million Being Spent for Island-Wide Upgrading

Four out of ten Roosevelt Island streetlights don’t work.

As this weekend’s Fall for Arts festival has approached, workers employed by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC) have been busy in a bustle of clean-up-fix-up activity, ranging from minor makeovers for vacant storefronts, to laying new pavers near the Good Shepherd Community Center, through some enthusiastic tree-trimming at Meditation Lawn. Contractors have removed street lights and installed replacements, in a style recently selected after several candidate designs were considered, around much of the Island.

But in some sections, most of the street lights are out at night – off, not working, as has been the case for years. With shorter days, the problem becomes more noticeable.

A streetlight census conducted by The WIRE Monday through Wednesday nights, covering everything north of the Queensboro Bridge, produced some notable, if not alarming, figures:

• North of Octagon Park Apartments to Lighthouse Park, there are 48 lights. But the vast majority, 34, were dark on Wednesday night.

• On the West Promenade, from Octagon Apartments on the north to, and including, the West Service Road from the Blackwell turnaround to the Tram station, 58 of the 124 lights are out. That’s 47%, or nearly half.

• On the East Promenade, from Octagon Apartments to the Queensboro Bridge, there are 75 lights, of which 16 (21%) were non-working on Wednesday night.

• On Main Street, from the fire station to the Blackwell turnaround, there are 62 lights. Over a quarter – 18 – are out.

• Fifteen lights are all working in the new section of Main Street that runs through Southtown from the Blackwell turnaround to the Tram station.

Most of the streetlights are single units. In some stretches north of Manhattan Park, as many as eight adjacent lights are out, leaving entire sections of path unilluminated. Multiple-bulb units above the west promenade are only partially working.

Leaving out the relatively new Southtown section, which appears to be problem-free, some 126 of the surveyed 309 streetlights north of the Queensboro Bridge were non-functioning as of Tuesday night. That works out to 41 percent. Put another way, just 59 percent of the lights are functional – a failing grade in most schools. (In a 4.7-square-mile town in Western New York, Dunkirk, figures show that less than one percent of its 1,500 streetlights are out at any given time. Restoring a failed light takes no more than a few days.)

For years, RIOC management has had trouble keeping the lights on. Explanations – some would say "excuses" – have varied, but they once centered on non-standard lighting installed by the State, which the City declined to service. RIOC was often left with no one to point a finger at, though the Wellsbach company was often cited as being responsible for maintaining – or not – those non-standard transformers, poles, and lights. Availability of parts was cited at times. Overall, neither the RIOC regime of Dr. Jerome Blue (1996-1999) nor that of Robert H. Ryan (1999-2003) was able to solve the outdoor lighting problem.

During the current regime, a $1.4 million bite-the-bullet decision was made to fix the situation once and for all. RIOC Vice President Catherine Johnson said on Wednesday that the project includes "not only replacement of existing fixtures, but upgrading the electrical infrastructure throughout the Island, as well as adding fixtures where none have existed in the past." She added, "As part of this construction project, there will be interruptions in service while electrical power is upgraded or added... We anticipate project to completion by February 1."

If it’s successful, Herb Berman’s administration at RIOC will be able to point to a success that eluded his two predecessors. The WIRE will attempt to track progress through the first quarter of 2