St. Louis, a city in Missouri, U.S. will be rolling out a US $4 million streetlight upgrade project to make the roads safer at night, reported Fox2Now.
The streetlight project will not cost taxpayers any money at all, and the bill will be footed by MLB team St. Louis Cardinals.
In early January this year, a military veteran Chris Sanna was shot in the spine in a poorly lit street by a robber after leaving a Cardinals game.
The professional baseball team decided to make the streetlight replacement project a private effort, and will replace the yellow sodium streetlight in downtown with white LED bulbs, and color changing LED strips on the arms for decorative purposes.
“Most sodium high pressure bulbs in most street lights don`t work effectively at night for video surveillance because you can`t make out colors, you can`t make out shapes, so it sort of defeats the purpose of the surveillance video,” said St. Louis Cardinals spokesman Watermon.
Local business leaders have launched a fundraising campaign to replace the 2,300 lighting fixtures, and will need to raise another $400,000 for a pilot project that will run in 2016 along certain streets in the downtown district.
The local business leaders have raised US $300,000 and are exploring creative ways to raise the remaining funds, including an “Adopt a Light” program.
People that adopt a streetlight are given a miniature desk lamp model, with little color strip on it, said Missy Kelley, President and CEO of Downtown St. Louis, Inc.
Kelley was confident donors will eventually see the light and difference the lights bring to the downtown district.
The color dimmable LED strips on the cobra headed LED streetlights will glow red for Cardinals, and blue for the Blues, and green for St. Patrick’s Day and other in between colors.
The streetlights in the downtown area will be converted by the end of 2017.