San Diego is fixing over 6,000 broken street lamps after receiving a $3.5 million federal grant in April secured by U.S. Congressmembers Scott Peters (D-San Diego) and Juan Vargas (D-Chula Vista).
Normally, the city’s transportation department replaces broken wiring for the city’s roughly 54,000 streetlights but a backlog has piled up in recent years due to a lack of city electricians, according to city spokesperson, Anthony Santacroce.
With the new funding, the city will additionally hire outside electricians to hasten the repairs, he said.
City officials have been evaluating the labor market for electricians and comparing what the city can offer to that of surrounding areas—which led to a competitive 19 percent salary increase for electricians in 2022.
According to a news release by San Diego Councilwoman Jennifer Campbell, there are currently 10 city electricians—with only one vacancy—but the total number has risen to 18 with the new independent hires.
Campbell said some of the funding will fix 200 lights and 50 series circuits—which all go out when one is broken—in Point Loma alone, many of which were installed over 70 years ago.
“A lot of the streetlights in our older neighborhoods are like old-fashioned Christmas tree lights, where if one goes out, the entire string goes out—and the process to fix it is complex and time-consuming,” Mayor Todd Gloria was quoted as saying in the San Diego Union-Tribune in April.
Campbell said the repairs will make the city safer since neighborhoods, pedestrians, and cyclists are more vulnerable to crime in the dark.
Residents can report a broken street lamp on the city’s street division page of its website.
According to Santacroce, current repairs take up to 11 months to complete, depending on various factors—including loss of staff and complexity of repairs when antiqued or vandalized streetlights are involved.
Of the over 5,000 repairs the city has made, the number of incoming requests continues to outpace the city’s ability to address them by 35 percent, Santacroce said.
