Prolonged street light outages in Vallejo caused by aging infrastructure and copper wire theft

VALLEJO — Drive into Vallejo at night from eastbound Interstate 780, and a few blocks later you are suddenly engulfed in darkness. No street lights are working along Curtola Parkway, a four-lane thoroughfare that winds between Lake Dalwigk Park and the Copart salvage yard to the south, and Wilson Park to the north. 

If you are lucky, some ambient light will spill over from the baseball diamond at Wilson Park and reduce the chance you’ll be blinded by the high beams of approaching drivers when they pop out from around a curve. But those lights are not always on.

When you approach the intersection of Curtola Parkway, Solano Avenue, and Monterrey Street, you cannot read the street name signs because their lights are out as well.

Then, proceeding along Curtola west of Monterrey Street, the street lights are on, but very dim with an orange cast. 

Whether you turn right onto Sonoma Boulevard, or continue straight onto Mare Island Way, the lighting issues around the rest of the city are the same. You’ll find pockets of good lighting at public parking lots and commercial centers, while the rest of the city is dimly lit, and the majority of the internally lit street name signs on major thoroughfares are unlit and illegible.

Vallejo’s lighting problems are not new. The Vallejo Sun found open tickets about the Curtola Parkway street light outages on SeeClickFix dating back to August 2022. The city now plans to replace these lights, rendered useless by copper wire theft, with solar powered lights that can be installed on existing lamp posts, which will prevent future wire theft. The new lights will be paid for with a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. The City Council approved the purchase of the new solar lights at Tuesday’s meeting. 

Assistant Public Works Director of Maintenance Oscar Alcantar told the Sun that the federal grant is specific to disadvantaged communities, for which the Curtola Parkway area qualifies, and that the city plans to use funds from Measure P, a seven-eighths-cent sales tax passed by voters in 2022, to make solar light retrofits in locations that do not qualify for the grant.

But the Department of Energy grants are among the government expenditures that were targeted by Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” in January. The halt in funding was rescinded by the White House the next day, but those funds could still be blocked or slowed pending a review by a political appointee. The Department of Energy has not responded to the Vallejo Sun’s request for comment.

The dim orange street lights that serve most of Vallejo are LEDs that were installed during the Citywide Streetlight Replacement Project that was conducted at the end of 2014. Alcantar told the Sun that many of those lights were replaced throughout the city through a 10-year material replacement warranty, which has now expired. The yellowing effect of the LED street lights is caused by discoloration of an outer lens that loses efficiency over time. “We are now moving towards replacement of our streetlights with solar LED lights as the existing ones fail,” Alcantar said.

The illuminated street name signs at Vallejo’s major intersections were installed decades ago to replace older, reflective signs that aren’t independently illuminated, but have been failing for many years. 

A Facebook post that summarizes a 2013 Vallejo Heritage Team brainstorming meeting states, “Street sign lights are burned out. Either replace them or go back to reflective signs.” A nighttime survey of Sonoma Boulevard, Curtola Parkway, Mare Island Way and Magazine Street revealed that most of these signs are unlit.

Alcantar said that the street name signs on Sonoma Boulevard, the traffic signals, and the four street lights at each corner are the responsibility of Caltrans. Lighting on other city streets is Vallejo’s responsibility. 

Caltrans spokesperson Bart Ney said that Caltrans has not received reports about the street name sign outages from the city of Vallejo, but that the Caltrans maintenance team is aware of the issue, and have told him that copper wire theft is a suspected cause.

“We do have a significant project that's going to be starting up over the next year, to completely repave State Route 29 going through Vallejo,” Ney said. “Sonoma Boulevard is going to have a major pavement upgrade, and we'll be looking at making improvements to the area during that time, which would include electrical.”

Alcantar said that Public Works will be updating the rest of the city's illuminated street name sign lights as part of a preventative maintenance project. “It will take us about 24 months to get through our whole city, but if we are made aware of an illuminated street sign being out we can move it to the top,” he said.

Former Councilmember Cristina Arriola, who represented Vallejo’s District 6 from 2021 until she left office this year, said the Curtola Parkway street lights have been out of service for at least three years. 

She said she alerted former City Manager Mike Malone about the problem immediately when she noticed it driving home from a City Council meeting. She said she followed up every three or four months but got no results. “I was constantly emailing, texting, trying to get some sort of attention, and I get, pass the ball, kick the can down the road, responses.” Arriola said.

Arriola said that Malone replied that replacement copper wire was on order, and blamed supply chain shortages for the delay. 

Arriloa said that Curtola Parkway is dangerous during the day, with curves and blind spots, and people coming off of I-780 drive at high speeds like they’re still on the freeway. And it’s worse at night. “If you have your high beams on, that's great, until you get oncoming traffic with their high beams on, and you're blinded,” Arriola said. “You can't see the white lines to tell how close you are to the median or to the other side of the road. It's just dangerous.”

Arriola’s experience was very different from Vallejo Heights Neighborhood Association Vice President Dian Allen, who said she started working with Public Works Supervisor Rodney Henderson to restore vandalized street lighting on Wilson Avenue about a year and a half ago. “He has communicated really clearly and responsibly,” Allen said. It felt like we've been on the same page, in the sense of what the obstacles are in Vallejo.”

Allen said that only one in four of the street lights on Wilson Avenue were working due to copper wire theft and other vandalism. The broken lighting was restored about a year after she started working with Henderson. Public Works also took anti-tampering measures such as replacing copper wire with aluminum and securing access points. The city has ordered replacement street light poles where some are still missing, which are expected to be installed in early March.

Allen said that lighting is an important safety and pride issue in our city that makes a real difference in morale. “We do drive up Tennessee Street, and just sort of everywhere, it's dark and depressing downtown,” she said.

But she said she feels hopeful now after working with Henderson, and with the attitude of the new city manager, the new mayor and some new city council people who have safety and efficiency at the top of their agenda. “I did suggest to [City Manager Andrew] Murray, who spoke at one of our meetings a few months ago, that he use street lights as an exemplary project of him being successful in efficiency,” she said.

Alcantar asked that Vallejo residents help Public Works prioritize repairs by reporting lighting outages through SeeClickFix. “We're working hard to get these lights back up,” he said.