The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge lights returned Friday night after being shut off for three years.

The event debuted the 1.8-mile-long rebuild that features 48,000 custom-engineered LEDs, according to Illuminate, the San Francisco nonprofit arts organization that produced the project. The lights will be on every night from sunset until sunrise.

“I think of The Bay Lights as a way of making invisible systems visible,” said Leo Villareal, the New York-based artist who designed the project. “The bridge is already full of rhythm, traffic, weather, motion, time—and the light responds to that complexity through abstraction. It’s not about decoration. It’s about revealing the pulse of its location.”

Illuminate’s founder, Ben Davis, said he invited artist Leo Villareal to propose an artwork for the Bay Bridge and has, himself, guided the project through each of its stages. 

“The Bay Lights belong to San Francisco,” he said. “They’re a reminder that beauty can live at the scale of infrastructure—and that awe can be part of a city’s identity.”

Davis spoke at the Friday night event and called San Francisco “the city of awe” and the “most important city in the world.”

The original installation of the lights opened in 2013. Illuminate said the lights closed in 2023 after wear from wind, salt, moisture, and vibration led to increased LED failures.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge is illuminated with artist Leo Villareal's Bay Lights sculpture in San Francisco on March 5, 2013. (Stephen Lam/Getty Images)

This new system was engineered by Musco Lighting and is expected to last for at least ten years. 

A second design phase of the project, called TBL360, is intended to expand visibility of the lights after being tested for safety.

“The Bay Lights are an iconic symbol of San Francisco and the entire Bay Area,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said, according to Illuminate. “I’m thrilled to welcome back the light installation that will once again bring beauty and pride to our city and the whole region.”

The $11 million funding for this iteration of the project reportedly came from more than 1,300 private donors. At the event, Davis said the project has received more than $25 million from donors over the years.

Illuminate said the March 20 event date also honors the 92nd birthday of Willie L. Brown, a former San Francisco mayor for whom the western span of the bridge is named.

“Our creative class—our arts, our culture—has always led the way,” Mayor Lurie said at the event.