Vallejo – Drive from Interstate 780 in Vallejo at night, and a few blocks later you suddenly devoured in the dark. On the Curtola Parkway, a four -lane thoroughfare that winds between Dalwigk Park Lake Dalwigk and Copart Salvage Yard in the south, and Wilson Park in the north.
If you are lucky, some ambient light will be flooded by the baseball diamond in Wilson Park and the likelihood reduces that you will be blinded by the high rays of the approaching drivers when you get out of a curve. But these lights are not always on.
If you approach the intersection of the Curtola Parkway, Solano Avenue and the Monterrey Street, you cannot read the street signs because your lights also appear.
Then the street lamps in Curtola west along the Monterrey Street, but very dark with an orange line -up.
Regardless of whether you bend on the right to the Sonoma boulevard or drive directly to the Mare Island Way, the lighting problems around the rest of the city are the same. You will find good lighting in public parking spaces and trade centers, while the rest of the city is weakly illuminated and the majority of the internally illuminated street signs are not illuminated and illegible on important thoroughfare.
Vallejos lighting problems are not new. The Vallejo Sun found open tickets about the failures of the Curtola Parkway Street Lightes on Seeclickfix to go back August 2022. The city is now planning to replace these lights, which are useless with copper wire theft, with solar lights that can be installed on existing lamp posts, which will prevent future wire theft. The new lights are paid for with a grant from the US Ministry. The city council approved the purchase of the new solar lights on Tuesday on Tuesday meet.
The deputy director of public works by the maintenance director, Oscar Alcantar, told The Sun that the federal grant is specific to disadvantaged communities for which the Curtola Parkway area is qualified and that the city is planning to use a seven-night cent sales tax in 2022 in order not for the locations that are not for the scholarship Solar light retrofits are located to create voters.
However, the Ministry of Energy Addresses are among the state expenditure that Specifically at Elon Musk's “Department of Government Efficiency” In January. The Stop at the financing was lifted in the white house the next day, but these remedies could still be blocked or slowed down Until a review by a political representative. The Ministry of Energy did not answer the request of the Vallejo Sun after comment.
The dark orange street lamps that operate the most Vallejo are LEDs that were installed during the Stadtweiter -Ststraßen -substitute project That was carried out at the end of 2014. Alcantar told the sun that many of these lights in the whole city were replaced by a 10-year material replacement guarantee that has now expired. The yellowing effect of the LED street lanterns is caused by discoloration of an outer lens that loses efficiency over time. “We are now moving to the exchange of our street lamps with Solar -Led lights when the existing failure,” said Alcantar.
The illuminated street names on the most important intersections of Vallejo were installed decades ago to replace older, reflective signs that are not independently illuminated, but have failed for many years.
A Facebook post This summarizes a 2013 Brainstorming meeting of Vallejo Heritage Team: “Street signs are burned out. Either replace them or return to reflective characters. “A nightly survey under Sonoma Boulevard, Curtola Parkway, Mare Island Way and Magazine Street showed that most of these characters are not illuminated.
Alcantar said that the street names on the Sonoma boulevard, the traffic signals and the four street lamps on every corner are responsible for Caltrans. Lighting on other streets in the city is at Vallejo's responsibility.
Bart Ney, spokesman for Caltrans, said that Caltrans had not received any reports on the name tag cancellations from the city of Vallejo, but that the Caltrans maintenance team is known to the problem and has informed him that copper wire theft is a suspected cause.
“We have an important project that will start completely next year Repave State Route 29 by Vallejo“Said Ney. “SONOMA Boulevard will lead over a large sidewalk upgrade, and at this time we will make improvements in the area that would belong electrically.”
Alcantar said that public work will update the rest of the city's illuminated street tag lights as part of a preventive maintenance project. “It will take about 24 months to get through our whole city, but if we are aware of an illuminated street sign, we can bring it up,” he said.
Former council member Cristina Arriola, who left Vallejos District 6 from 2021 until this year, said that Street Lights Curtola Parkway has been out of operation for at least three years.
She said she immediately informed the former city manager Mike Malone about the problem when she noticed that it drove home from a city council meeting. She said she had followed every three or four months, but did not achieve any results. “I constantly sent an e -mail, wrote an SMS, tried to get some attention, and I get the ball fighting past, stepping onto the street.” Said Arriola.
Arriola said that Malone replied that the replacement copper wire was ordered and that the delay of the supply chain accused.
Arriloa said that the Curtola Parkway is dangerous during the day, with curves and blind spots and people who come from the I-780 trip at high speeds as if they were still on the highway. And it's worse at night. “If you have your high beams on, it is great until you get oncoming traffic with your high beams and you are blinded,” said Arriola. “You cannot see the white lines to determine how close they are to the median or the other side of the street. It's just dangerous. “
The experience of Arriola was very different from the Vice President of the Vallejo Heights Neighhborthood Association, Dian Allen, who said that she started with the supervisor of public work Rodney Henderson to restore the destroyed street lighting on Wilson Avenue. “He communicated really clearly and responsibly,” said Allen. It felt like we were on the same side, in the sense of the obstacles in Vallejo. “
Allen said that only every fourth street lamps in Wilson Avenue worked due to copper wire theft and other vandalism. The broken lighting was restored about a year after their collaboration with Henderson. Public work also took anti-to-make measures such as the replacement of copper wire with aluminum and securing access points. The city has ordered replacement rod lights where some are still missing that are expected to be installed in early March.
Allen said that lighting in our city is an important problem and proud that makes a real difference in morality. “We drive up the Tennessee Street and everywhere, it is dark and depressing in the city center,” she said.
But she said that she now feels hopeful after working with Henderson, and with the hiring of the new city administrator, the new mayor and the new city council members who have security and efficiency at the head of her agenda. “I suggested [City Manager Andrew] Murray, who spoke at one of our meetings a few months ago, uses road lights as an exemplary project that he is successful in efficiency, ”she said.
Alcantar asked the residents of Vallejo to help public work to prioritize repairs Seeclickfix. “We are working hard to get these lights back,” he said.
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