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Columbia City Council Approves Streetlight Improvements

Meiying Wu
/
KBIA

The Columbia City Council unanimously voted to approve streetlight improvements Monday for three different areas of the city.

Three new street lights will be placed along West Broadway near Reedsport Ridge, and one on Cass Drive between Rice Road and Mohawk Avenue. Thirty-six streetlights in East Campus will be upgraded from mercury vapor bulbs to brighter LEDs.

University of Missouri senior Justin McDonald, told council members that this is a good start, but there is still more work to be done.

McDonald helped organize a walk last fall to review the area with students and stakeholders. Tim Waid owns property in East Campus, and went on the walk. He said they found “dark voids” in the neighborhood.

“These were basically light deserts where there was no lighting, he said. “There was no lighting pole, so you couldn’t have a light bulb.”

Waid said that because East Campus has a large population of students, it has different needs than typical residential areas. Lighting is essential because students are more likely to be walking in the evening and nighttime, he said.

“They’re movement begins when the sunsets,” Waid said. “They’re going to libraries. They’re going to meetings. They’re going to classes. They’re going to the hospitals. They’re going to social events.”

Another finding from the Safety Walk was that overgrown trees and plants blocked some streetlight and made the area feel less safe at night, McDonald said.

McDonald researched the issue and found that students have been concerned about East Campus for years, but those concerns die off once they graduate.

Students should be involved in tackling the issue, McDonald said. He plans to form a committee that would advocate for students, and work with the city and stakeholders.

“If we can create an established organization with the right individuals involved,” McDonald said, “it should ensure that these safety issues are addressed every year and aren’t forgotten about.”

City staff will conduct another study to compare light levels before and after the improvements, and will have a follow-up report in next fall.

Beatriz Costa-Lima is originally from São Paulo, Brazil, and is a student newscaster at KBIA. She is a graduate student at the Missouri School of Journalism studying documentary journalism.