Syracuse completes citywide switch to LED streetlights, boosting safety and savings

Syracuse has finished converting every public streetlight in the city to LED fixtures, a change officials say should be visible on neighborhood blocks as brighter nights, fewer outages and lower electric bills.

The upgrade followed a citywide review of the streetlight system in 2019 and reached into every part of Syracuse, from the Valley neighborhood, where replacement work began in July 2019, to busy corridors such as Delaware Street and Richmond Avenue. On those stretches, city crews used a different color of light to create a whiter, brighter appearance without increasing wattage, part of an effort to improve visibility while limiting the kind of glare residents often complain about.

The project grew out of a major financial and infrastructure overhaul that started in 2018, when the Syracuse Common Council approved borrowing $38 million to buy 17,507 streetlights from National Grid and convert them into a smart LED network. Syracuse later said the total cost would come in closer to $30 million, and Mayor Ben Walsh said the shift could save the city about $3 million a year in energy and maintenance costs. By late 2018, the city had finalized the purchase from National Grid and taken control of the lights.

Ken Towsley, the city’s street lighting manager, has overseen the network’s maintenance and operation. Towsley said Syracuse worked with the Syracuse Police Department over several years to focus on roadways where crime concerns were raised, using lighting changes to make streets easier to see after dark. In those areas, the city treated lighting not just as a utility, but as part of the broader public safety landscape.

The Department of Public Works also has a response for residents who think a fixture is too harsh or poorly aimed: it can install a lamp shade to direct the light downward. That matters in a city where councilors and residents have repeatedly raised concerns about light pollution as much as about outages.

Residents can report streetlight problems, including outages, brightness complaints and other service requests, through the SYR City Line app. The app now serves as the city’s day-to-day check on whether the new system is delivering what it promised: safer streets, better-maintained equipment and a modernized network that should cost less to run for years to come.