Two downtown streets to be dimmed

March 12, 2008
By Robert C, Burns
Muskegon Chronicle

MUSKEGON -- Now that Muskegon's Webster and Muskegon avenues are no longer the equivalent of urban freeways, it's time to disconnect some of the freeway lighting.

By action of the Muskegon City Commission Monday, 20 streetlights will be removed from mid-block locations along a five-block section of Muskegon and Webster between Fourth and Ninth streets.

That's the residential portion of what used to be the downtown U.S. 31 Business Route before that designation was shifted to Shoreline Drive last July.

All existing streetlights will remain along the much more commercial section between Fourth and Spring streets.

Last November, Muskegon and Webster avenues were converted back to the two-way streets they were until the late 1950s, and parking was again allowed on both sides of the two streets.

Many residents had urged the city to turn the streets back into the residential neighborhood streets they were back then. The removal of mid-block streetlights conforms to the lighting standards of most other residential streets in the city, said City Engineer Mohammed Al-Shatel.

By Al-Shatel's calculations, removing the 20 streetlights will cost the city about $13,000. But it will save the city about $3,600 a year in energy costs.

Al-Shatel listed several other advantages to the change, including removal of illumination some residents might find undesirable, the possible discouragement of some through traffic, less clutter along narrow terraces, and fewer light poles to worry about during storms.

One possible disadvantage: complaints from some homeowners who associate safety with illumination.

City commissioners weighed those choices as well as a third option of de-energizing some lights before voting to reduce lighting in the residential section only.