Street light repairs too slow, alderman says

A Calgary alderman wants the city to move quicker when street lights are on the blink.

Ward 6 Ald. Richard Pootmans said a recent report shows the response rate to fix street lamps has deteriorated fifty per cent so far this year. He wants council to look into it.

"311 is responding suggesting it is a 30-day response time. I'm suggesting certainly going into winter at a minimum this is not a good time of year to be looking at 30-day response times," he said.

"I suspect at the end of the day this is going to come down to a budget item," he said.

According to Enmax there are more than 80,000 street lights in Calgary, and on average 800 will be out at any given time.

Dustin Neufeldt says the lights in front of his southwest Calgary home have been out for more than a month without the city taking action.

"I guess it's not a big priority because we're such a small block but it's so dark that you can't see ten feet in front of you what's going to happen," he said.

Pootmans said he wants to hear from the public about how quickly they expect broken street lights to be repaired.