Summary: |
The Town currently has 614 street lights. The first stage of this program proposed to eliminate 174 lights; this number has now been reduced to 107. The Town targeted street lights that were not over an intersection or over pedestrian amenities. Staff did not include street lights that were part of recent subdivision plans. To eliminate these lights would likely require action by the Planning Board and/or Town Council. These lights may be addressed in the future.
Significant public input has been received through the following: public hearing, telephone calls, e-mails and personal meetings with staff. There has been public opposition on 72 street lights. Staff conducted a second inspection of the lights proposed for elimination including those receiving public opposition. We determined that any light proposed for elimination that was located at the end of a street would be taken off the list and left status quo. We also decided to take lights off the elimination list if they are located in an area where there will be a new sidewalk, curve in the road and in areas where there has historically been a heavy concentration of lights. In the locations where there was a heavy concentration of street lights we opted to take some off the elimination list to reduce the impact to the area. The Flats and Brook
Road are good examples regarding this scenario. We determined that some lights should remain on the elimination list because they did not meet any criteria for leaving the light in its current status.
Attached are two documents and two maps that identify the proposed street lights to be eliminated. The streetlight elimination list has the street and pole number of the street lights that are proposed to be eliminated. The corresponding map shows all the Town's streetlights with red dots representing the lights proposed to be eliminated and blue dots representing the lights that will remain. The Progression of Proposed Streetlight Elimination document lists all the original 174 streetlights that were targeted for elimination, shows which lights had public comment, shows which lights were removed from the elimination list, and states a brief explaination for each decision. The corresponding map is divided into 5 categories. The blue dots are streetlights that were never on the elimination list. The orange dots are streetlights
that are on the elimination list and did not receive any public comment. The red dots are streetlights that remain on the elimination list even though there was public comment. After a second inspection, these lights still met the criteria for elimination and remain targeted for elimination. The yellow dots are streetlights that were on the elimination list, received public comment, and then were removed from the list after the second inspection. The reasons for removing these lights from the list include the light is located at the end of a dead end street, is located on a curve, or is among consecutive targeted lights and a compromise was decided. The green dots are streetlights that were on the elimination list and did not receive public comment, but were removed from the list by staff because they no longer met the criteria for elimination. The green dots also include those lights that are over the new sidewalks that are scheduled to be built in the next four years.
There is also a street light layer on the Town web site and can be accessed by clicking here [ http://gis.cdm.com/FalmouthMaineGIS/ ] |
