Rochester Gas and Electric is getting ready to replace some historic streetlights in the town of Brighton.
The utility will be upgrading the circuits and other parts of the tall lamps that date back nearly a century. RG&E officials said this week that they need to replace streetlight circuits to improve the reliability and also replace the older incandescent bulbs with LED lighting.
That’s according to projects unit manager Mike Miranda, who said more than 250 streetlights will be upgraded over the next couple of years. Work is scheduled to begin in November.
Miranda said that RG&E has been working with the community and the Brighton Historic Preservation Committee to use fixtures and other parts that resemble the original lamps.
Town Supervisor Bill Moehle is happy about that.
“They're beautiful. They were striking to me when I first moved to Brighton, 45 years ago. So, doing it in a way that is energy efficient while still preserving this beautiful historic feature is a great outcome,” said Moehle.
Both Moehle and Miranda said that moving to the LED lighting will provide a safer environment for the town’s many pedestrians, and Miranda said the new lighting is also more efficient.
“With the existing circuits being 100 years old, as you can imagine, it's been a little bit tough to find replacement parts, to repair and refurbish them as needed,” said Miranda. “So we realized that the wholesale replacement of these older circuits are going to be required to provide that safe street lighting in the area.”
Miranda said that crews will be upgrading the circuitry and lighting one section at a time, “and we'll be working with our neighbors in the community to inform them of any outages or upgrades that are going to be coming through their area.”
Eventually, a total of 650 older streetlamps will be replaced in both the town of Brighton and the village of Pittsford over the next few years.
