Niagara-on-the-Lake spent over $500K to upgrade street lighting
Published June 24, 2021 at 6:56 pm
Niagara-on-the-Lake recently passed a motion to send Niagara Regional Council all of the background on last year’s upgraded LED street lighting, which cost over $540,000.
Last year, Niagara-on-the-Lake completed an LED Streetlighting Installation Program with capital costs to be debentured of $542,519.07.
Upon hearing the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) was going to eliminate their cooperative purchasing program, the Town jumped on the last-chance opportunity to get their street lighting updated.
In total, there are 2,113 streetlights in Niagara-on-the-Lake and the Town had completed upgrades to roughly 40 lights per year, switching out the old-school illumination with upgraded LED fixtures. However, the Town still had 593 lights that needed to be upgraded and staff indicated it would take until 2033 to complete the task.
Staff indicated in their report that the Town saw at least 40 street light outages every year, usually due to seasonal changes in temperature, of which 95 per cent were the High Pressure Sodium (HPS) and Metal Halide (MH) lamps.
In the report, written by Town Engineering Technologist Ron Andrea from the Public Works department, tenders were offered on the upgrading program and three bids came into the Town.
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After one was selected, the work being offered by one was “in keeping with the Town’s purchasing by-law and that the substantial savings that will accrue to the Town’s tax-supported street accounts are real and in the Town’s best interests.”
The paperwork needed to be registered with the Region so that it could be put into debentures to spread the loan over a 10-year period. The Region will now pick the loan package that staff feels offers the best interest rates.
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