Task Force Working To Keep Lights On Along Tulsa Highways

Three City of Tulsa employees are working hard to repair 6,000 lights along our highways. A new task force is working to get the light on and keep them on.

The City's street department said a vast majority of the lights are out because of copper theft.

After several complaints from drivers about dark highways, the city council is going to find ways to get more money to fix the problem.

Busy sections of Tulsa's highway system are in the dark. The City said an increase in copper theft is to blame - around $2.5 million is needed to get the street lights back on.

Tulsa only has three people to fix the broken lights, and in some cases, thieves are coming right back to rip out the new wiring.

The city council is moving forward with a task force to keep the lights on.

10/30/2015 Related Story: Copper Thieves Turning Out The Lights On Tulsa Highways

"What I think that's happening is we're not doing our best to find the funding to get the lights back on, and that's what we're trying to get this committee to do," Councilor Jack Henderson said.

The City's streets director is already making changes so the copper theft doesn't happen again.

“They're finding out that we really are using aluminum, so, hoping the word will get around and they'll stop cutting the wire because we're not going to be using copper anymore, and that's really the only wire that had the value," said Terry Ball with Tulsa Streets and Stormwater.

His crew already has the lights back on along Highway 11 from Highway 75 to Yale. Now they're working on getting the rest of Highway 11 finished between Yale and Memorial.

Ball is hiring a contractor to get more of the work done, including plans to upgrade the light posts with tamper-proof junction boxes.

The council is expected to approve the task force committee at Thursday night's meeting.

The street department is hoping to upgrade the street lights to LEDs because they use about half the electricity and would have computer monitoring to alert police if a light is being tampered with.