CLEVELAND — Some Cleveland leaders and community activists are concerned about bridge lighting outages they say could have a negative impact on safety.
Community activist Henry Senyak pointed to light fixtures that are broken or are burned-out under multiple bridges on both the east and west sides of the city.
Senyak said some of the lights posted under bridge over-passes have been out for several months and are a potential hazard for motorist, pedestrians and cyclists.
"This is an emergency, let’s get this resolved,” Senyak said.
“The majority of these wall packs lights are out."
"It’s systemic and they have to have a repair solution, they have to have a replacement solution, versus just having one dedicated crew to do all this work for the city.”
Senyak said the lighting problems on Starkweather, Fairfield and Kenilworth avenues could create a safety issue for drivers and could have a bad impact on neighborhood crime.
“We had a robbery and car jacking at gun point just last week on Brevier Avenue,” Senyak said.
“For drivers, when they’re coming in and it’s dark, and then there is one bright light and then there is not, it could be confusing and they’ll look the other way and cross the yellow line."
Cleveland Tremont neighborhood Councilman Kerry McCormack agrees the broken bridge lights are a safety concern and said he's been trying to work with Cleveland Public Power to finally get repairs completed.
“It’s critically important that those areas are lit,” McCormack said.
"Cleveland Public Power said hey are working on it."
"I guess we’ll find out in the next cripple weeks if this gets done."
News 5 contacted Cleveland Public Power headquarters and it said it will look into repair orders on the broken bridge lights.
CCP said it should have an update on repairs within the next 24 hours.
