KHOU finds 478 dark highway lights across Harris County, ownership unclear

Nearly 500 high-mast highway lights were dark across Harris County, leaving major commuter corridors dimmer at night and renewing questions about who owns the fixtures and who is responsible for repairing them.

KHOU 11 Investigates counted 478 non-working high-mast lights after reporter Jeremy Rogalski and photographer Eric Darelius drove every highway in the county on March 30 and April 1, covering more than 500 miles over two nights. The wide sweep turned what could have looked like scattered outages into a countywide pattern, one that affects nightly drivers on fast-moving roads, complex interchanges and stretches with limited shoulder space.

The ownership problem is at the center of the public-safety concern. Texas Department of Transportation’s Highway Illumination Manual says lighting projects within city limits that involve state financing require an agreement spelling out construction, maintenance and operation responsibilities. The manual also says TxDOT has authority to construct, maintain and operate lighting systems on state highways, while high-mast assemblies under city maintenance responsibility should be inspected and serviced by the city or its agent. It further says districts should periodically check that city-performed maintenance is being done correctly, and warns that if a city is not providing adequate maintenance, no new agreements for city-maintained freeway lighting should be executed until corrective action is taken.

The April findings fit a broader pattern that has played out across the Houston area for months. In November, KHOU reported more than 80 dark lights in north Harris County alone, about half of them along the Grand Parkway between Highway 290 and the Eastex Freeway. In February, high-mast lights along a stretch of the Hardy Toll Road were finally restored after nearly two years of darkness, after repeated complaints and earlier reporting. The first 311 complaint about those outages was filed in February 2024.

Houston Public Works director Randy Macchi said the city and state have renewed coordination on the lighting problem and described the old approach as “kicking the can down the road.” He said what began as a few outages eventually “ballooned” into a much larger problem. The scale of the outages now puts the issue squarely in the middle of maintenance, funding and interagency responsibility, not simply routine repairs.

Harris County’s Office of the County Engineer says its Traffic Engineering and Operations division handles traffic issues and works to ensure safer roads. For drivers on Harris County’s busiest highways, the unresolved question is simple: when the lights go out, who is supposed to turn them back on?