New Lights

This year East Palo Alto's public works department installed approximately 70 streetlight mast arms on existing wooden PG&E poles. This has improved lighting on many streets in the City. More info can be found on the City website: https://www.ci.east-palo-alto.ca.us/publicworks/project/streetlight-placement-and-upgrade-project

Phase 2 of the project includes a citywide lighting study and lighting improvements citywide. The citywide lighting study will analyze the existing conditions, identify deficiencies, and then determine the necessary improvements. The study is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

Here is more information from the Capital Improvements ongoing projects PDF:

When the City of East Palo Alto was part of unincorporated San Mateo County, street lights in East Palo Alto were placed using a rural lighting standard. This project includes the installation of additional LED streetlights to fill gaps at various locations identified by the community in order to bring East Palo Alto up to urban lighting standards, which typically require a 200 foot maximum spacing between poles. It is estimated that 300 additional LED streetlights should be installed to meet community demand. Installations will only be placed where existing PG&E poles and services are available due to cost factors.

Dark Streets: Unsafe Road Conditions

This is a big improvement. Many residents had complained about unsafe road conditions at night due to inadequate lighting on many streets citywide, such as Beech St, Runnymede, streets on the northern neighborhood (University Village), and more. The vehicle collisions data backs up the sentiment. 55.2% of vehicle collisions have been between 5pm - 7am - the darker times of day - in the 18-month period from 1/1/24 to 6/30/25. In the screenshots below, notice how many of these collisions are on residential streets, especially on the southeast (Gardens) and northwest (Palo Alto Park) neighborhoods of the city.

The upcoming citywide lighting study should factor in these data points, as places where streets may be underlit and hence could be leading to vehicle collisions.

Increased Lighting Fund Usage

This year East Palo Alto's City Council has significantly expanded the Fiscal Year 2025-2026 budget lighting district expenditures from ~$200k to $4.5M. I think this is a great move that will deploy much-needed funds to create a citywide lighting study and improve lighting conditions citywide. The lighting district funds have grown to over $6M, due to decreasing budgets in previous years ($200k - $300k) while the annual revenue to the lighting district has been $500k - $800k.

Vice mayor Mark Dinan drove the initiative to utilize our lighting fund; you may remember his blog post when he discovered the lighting district funds:

Next Steps

Moving forward, we should track the citywide lighting study, which will identify remaining gaps in the City of East Palo Alto's street lighting plan. Better street lighting has been shown to improve roadway safety for all modes of transportation and to deter crime. I think it's a no-brainer, high ROI investment for the City.