How do you feel about your street lights?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2019 (2443 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

How do you feel about the residential lighting throughout Garden City? Is your street well lit? How about your local parks and playgrounds?

Now is the time to share your thoughts and ideas on how to improve the lighting within our neighbourhood.

The City of Winnipeg recently launched a Winnipeg Lighting Study, which will examine how residents feel about current lighting levels, including streets, parks and walking trails, around the city. In particular, residents are asked to share their opinions on how neighbourhoods and residential streets are lit. You can also provide ideas on where improvements should be made in the community. The study will also help compare Winnipeg’s street lighting to other cities across Canada.

In Garden City, we are fortunate to have beautiful boulevards lined with many trees, creating a wonderful urban forest throughout our neighbourhood. This tree canopy has also created lighting concerns for our residents, as many boulevard trees have grown to a mature size and block the street lights.

Mature neighbourhoods across Winnipeg with similar trees, such as River Heights and East Kildonan, face similar lighting issues. Boulevard City’s tree maintenance program is notoriously years behind schedule and they are unable to keep up with requests for pruning.

Garden City’s residential streets and sidewalks could be better lit by shorter boulevard lamp posts, similar to those in other Winnipeg neighbourhoods and cities across Canada. These shorter lamp posts feature lights that sit below the tree line, allowing more light to reach and illuminate the streets and sidewalks below without being blocked. This increased lighting creates a safer community for drivers and pedestrians alike. Recent lighting upgrades to Kildonan Park have included this shorter style of lamp post and feedback has been very positive.

Many Garden City parks could also use lighting upgrades. Converting existing park lights to modern LED lighting is a simple solution to increase evening lighting levels without the cost of adding more lamp posts or affecting the privacy of nearby residents.

I encourage all residents to take the survey before Nov. 28 at www.winnipeg.ca/streetlighting

Shine bright, Garden City.