A brighter, and cheaper tomorrow for Timmins

The conversion to LED street lights has begun.

The work will allow the city to save around $400,000 a year, which for the first five years, will go towards paying back a loan to do the project in the first place.

Afterwards, Director of Public Works Luc Duval says that extra savings can go to other needs in the city, like infrastructure.

The work itself is going to cost in the neighbourhood of $2.6-million, which is all being financed by the aforementioned loan.

Timmins Mayor Steve Black says residents will notice the difference in the quality, and the brightness in the lighting, and will add to the aesthetics of the city moving forward.

The city is also keeping the work local, with Highline Power doing the work.  Highline’s Duilio DePol says they’ve got plenty of experience in this type of work, having done several other communities like Smooth Rock Falls, Matheson, Iroquois Falls and Kirkland Lake.

Timmins has just under 4,000 fixtures to change, and you should expect some traffic delays.

Want to see the difference already?  Lafleur Drive is being changed up (see picture below) so when you take a drive at night, the difference will be clear.

Mayor Black says that’s not the only road that’s been changed already.  He says MacLean Drive and McBride Street have the new lights put up when they were under reconstruction.

The process itself will see workers fix up the entire Connecting Link first.  Duval says this will get the majority of the community to see the transition first-hand right away.

When it comes to maintenance, Duval says they have a 10-year warranty on the new lights, and the life cycle is about the same.  The difference, he adds, is the fact that if a light goes out, it’s just one light they have to worry about, not necessarily a whole block of lights for one malfunction.

DePol says they will be working across the city, and will take about four months to do the entire community.