Hawai‘i County Launching New Streetlight Improvement Program

The County of Hawai‘i is launching a streetlight improvement program with the aim of greatly improving the island’s lighting system, according to a July 12, 2019, county press release.

The Department of Public Works Traffic Division will implement a three-phase project to address the inadequate lighting system on this Island regarding:

• The type of lighting currently used
• The location and number of lights currently used

The project will roll out as follows:

• Phase One: Changing out existing dim LED lights on County of Hawai‘i roads by September 2020, starting with 1,500 lights on main connector roads in South Hilo and North Kona. The estimated cost of this phase is $1,000,000.
• Phase Two: Increasing the number of streetlights islandwide by adding lights to existing utility company-owned poles.
• Phase Three: Adding streetlights, which will be installed on new county-owned poles.

As part of the streetlight improvement program, the county is launching a pilot project installing and monitoring new smart technology streetlights in Hilo on Kapi‘olani Street between Lanikaula and Mohouli Streets from September to December 2019.

The smart lights can be monitored remotely from a computer, thereby reducing the cost of sending road crews to visually inspect the lights. Based on the results of that pilot program, the new smart streetlights will be installed islandwide in Phases Two and Three.

Cost estimates for the smart lights are not available at this time.

For more information on this new streetlight program, call the Traffic Division at (808) 961-8341.