Tons of street lights not working around Nashville

[ThunderOne]

Hope this can go here, but I've started noticing and reporting on Hub Nashville the street light outages around Nashville.

And boy let me tell you, there are a LOT of street lights out around the city.  It seems like on a five minute drive in any direction, I spot at least 10 street lights out, if not more.  One night I rode around on my motorcycle through maybe 0.1% of the city and opened 34 separate requests over a period of three hours.  I'm not sure what NES is doing but they don't seem to be very proactive about fixing these and won't do anything unless someone unaffiliated with NES reports them.  NES could honestly make a contest out of this, like the person to report the most street lights out win a gift card or something, especially if NES aren't going to do this job themselves.

If you see any street lights out, please report them to Hub Nashville.. they have their own mobile app now which helps make it easier.  And unless it is a highway/TDOT pole (which is another widespread issue I've noticed), they will usually make you enter in the pole number unless a string of them are out in which case you can just say that instead, although sometimes the HubNashville reps have the gall to tell me I need to take down the pole number of a light ON THE HIGHWAY. LOL.

It is under streets, roads, sidewalks, then click street lighting.

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by ThunderOne

[AsianintheNations]

I've noticed this, too! Where is the pole number marked? Unfortunately seems kind of hard to get that info if I'm driving past the pole, and I don't really walk around much after dark.

[Auntie Yock]

 

I think we found the culprit.

[MidTenn1]

The local municipality owns all street lighting, not TDOT or the electric company. TDOT will design and install the lighting as part of a larger project, but contractually turns ownership and responsibilities for maintenance and replacement over to the municipality, not the power company, even on the interstates. The municipality may turn over the maintenance responsibility to the local power agency later, but that's not a TDOT concern.

[ThunderOne]

15 hours ago, AsianintheNations said:

I've noticed this, too! Where is the pole number marked? Unfortunately seems kind of hard to get that info if I'm driving past the pole, and I don't really walk around much after dark.

The pole number is usually near the base of the pole in yellow and black lettering. Yes, it's quite annoying having to stop and take note of them, and dangerous especially on busier roads.

1 hour ago, MidTenn1 said:

The local municipality owns all street lighting, not TDOT or the electric company. TDOT will design and install the lighting as part of a larger project, but contractually turns ownership and responsibilities for maintenance and replacement over to the municipality, not the power company, even on the interstates. The municipality may turn over the maintenance responsibility to the local power agency later, but that's not a TDOT concern.

Thanks, that explains why even on the highways the lights are out so often.  So who do I need to contact about this then, if not NES?  I am mainly curious as to why there is no proactive effort from the city to check these on occasion. Filling out requests on HubNashville is starting to feel as useful as throwing a deck chair off the Titanic, there's so many.

Edited March 1, 2023 by ThunderOne

[ThunderOne]

Instead of submitting Hub requests until my thumbs turn blue and risking my life parking on the side of busy roadways to take down pole numbers, I have instead refocused my efforts to pushing for a citywide LED conversion. Many other cities have already done it, and their cost benefit analyses made it a no brainer. If any of you agree, please contact your councilperson or representative to let them know as well. Also, if you know who I can contact that might help with this, let me know.

Edited April 18, 2023 by ThunderOne

[ThunderOne]

Follow-up for anyone who cares, I found a person who shares the same goals as me on a committee called "Vision Zero Nashville" which is basically a metro task force to reduce pedestrian deaths. They seem to be aware of the issue now and also are supposedly working with contractors to get all lights converted to LED. I don't know exactly what the timeline is for that, but I am happy to hear it nonetheless.