Milhouse Kicks Off Smart Lighting Program with the Mayor and CDOT

Yesterday evening dozens of city officials, including Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) Commissioner, Rebekah Scheinfeld, contributors and spectators gathered at Dinah Washington Park on Chicago’s south side for the official kick off of the Smart Lighting Program. According to Scheinfeld, “one of the most popular calls to 311 is about street lights [being] out,” identifying reliable lighting at night as a continuous issue impacting multiple communities across the city. The Smart Lighting Program involves the upgrade of Chicago’s over 270,000 street and ally light fixtures. The outdated and inefficient high pressure sodium lamps will be replaced with reliable LED luminaries, which will improve public safety, nighttime visibility, and quality of life for all local residents.

Mayor Emanuel shared the first areas to receive the new lighting “are going to be in the communities on the south side and the west side because we want to make sure that they not only have the lighting but can address some safety issues” as well. The new program will save time, energy, and money, in addition to automatically sending an electronic notification to the city when a light goes out. This system will increase CDOT’s efficiency and response time to all repairs. “This is a win, win, win situation for the city,” stated Mayor Emanuel.

Milhouse’s Craig Turner, PE, Civil Design Section Manager, is the Program Manager of the Smart Lighting Program. Mr. Turner will lead Milhouse in providing Phase III construction engineering services to oversee the upgrade of each light fixture.

“This project touches everyone in the city,” stated Mr. Turner. “The most exciting part of the project is that it will change the way Chicago looks on the grid. Flying into either of our airports at night the city will be lit in white instead of orange.”

See here to read more details on Milhouse’s involvement in Chicago’s immense Smart Lighting Program.