Columbus city crews will soon begin installing 287 streetlights in the alleys of the South Linden neighborhood. Columbus Utilities Director Greg Davies says residents told the city they want the lights to help improve neighborhood safety. Davies says the 331 thousand dollar cost of the project will be covered with Urban Infrastructure Recovery Fund dollars, which the city sets aside for small neighborhood projects.
"This is a project that we're doing in partnership with our good friends in the Development Department through URF dollars. That's where neighborhoods get to chose what they would like those dollars spent on. In this case, they elected to light alleys in the South Linden neighborhood. Typically, they will have meetings and interested neighbors can come and they rank different projects in the neighborhood that they would like to see done. And streetlights is typically one that, if the neighborhood does not have lights in the alley particularly, that's not something we normally do through the Division of Power, so that's a good use of those dollars."
The contractor that won the bid for the installation work is based in Columbus.