New Haven Independent

That news pleased crime weary neighbors like Ben Simmons when they heard it at a meeting with officials Wednesday night.

Simmons was one of some 50 members of the Wooster Square Block Watch who gathered at the Conte West Hills school library to hear city’s short-term and long-term solutions to recent crimes clustered around the dark bridge. (Click here for a previous story and debate about the public’s concerns.) Crimes on the poorly lit bridge as well as at the intersection of Olive and Court galvanized the community into action.

The week before Thanksgiving, Simmons (foreground in photo), who would walk on Court Street home from his downtown architect’s job, was targeted by a gauntlet of muggers arrayed on the bridge.

He eluded them by zigzagging back and forth across the dark bridge. Another member of his firm a week later was not so lucky.

Incidents like those were increasingly reported to District Manager Lt. Rebecca Sweeney and posted on SeeClickFix. The city responded by increasing patrols, including more undercover officers.

Illuminating the bridge proved trickier.

To add lights to the Court Street Bridge meant the city would collide with the jurisdictions of Metro North and the federal government. It would also prove a problem because of the huge amount of electricity powering the trains below.

Even if permission could be granted to tap into that electricity, it would cost a lot and take a long time — enabling muggers to continue exploiting the darkness in the meantime.

For a solution, enter Sebouh Asadourian (foreground in photo with city Chief Operating Officer Rob Smuts). Asadourian is the city’s street light administrator. (Did you know we had one?)

After researching the issue, Asadourian selected a system of three solar fixtures from a Florida-based company named Sol.

The lights will be standard cobra-head L.E.D. fixtures mounted at the end of a 20-foot pole. The poles will rise from footings on the bridge and through openings cut in the curving barriers on both sides.

On the poles the solar panels will be bracketed at 45-degree angles and adjustable for orientation to the sun. Beneath the panel a battery bank will be charged by the sun for upwards of 14 hours.

Simmons and other green architects in the room peppered Asadourian with questions about the throw of the illumination, and if the battery will charge on the shortest and most overcast days.

“They’re dark-sky compliant,” Asadourian responded. That means means the battery will be charged even on overcast days and through the year’s longest night, Dec. 13.

He noted that Florida uses these lights, as do Vermont and other parts of New England that have less winter light.

Simmons, who practices green architecture himself with Pickard Chilton on Chapel Street, applauded the move. “It’s encouraging that they’ve taken it seriously,” he said. “I’m not skeptical. I just wanted to be sure the right light was chosen.”

Smuts estimated the total cost of the three lights including installation at $30,000. He said either stimulus money or capital project funds already in hand should cover the cost.

The project should go out to bid in January, he said. New lights potentially could be up by the spring. Smuts complimented Wooster Street neighbors for working well with the city.

Kari Brady of the block watch agreed; she characterized the meeting as “terrific.” She also promised to start calling City Hall if the project ends up on a back burner after all.
She said she hopes the neighborhood can hold a celebration for the new bridge lights around the spring equinox, with day as long as night and solar-powered batteries presumably very happy. That would be March 20, 2010.