By STEVEN LEMONGELLO Staff Writer
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ATLANTIC CITY — Walk down Florida Avenue after sunset and you can almost feel the darkness enveloping you.
“I tell people to take cabs if they’re from out of town,” said Pete Bennett, a bartender at the Ducktown Tavern. “Or walk in groups.”
The Ducktown neighborhood was singled out by then-Mayor-elect Don Guardian last year in his “20/20 Vision” presentation as one of the areas most in need of improved lighting, “because of the amount of crime, and (because) it’s a little darker than the rest of Atlantic City.”
Now, Ducktown will be the first neighborhood in the city to have all its light fixtures replaced with energy-efficient — and brighter — Light Emitting Diode, or LED lighting. The city’s goal is to eventually replace all 8,000 city lights with LEDs by the end of next year, making Atlantic City “the first city in the state to be completely transferred to LED,” said Councilman Frank Gilliam, who introduced the ordinance approving the program along with Councilman Marty Small.
The pilot program, the details of which were formalized in a meeting with Atlantic City Electric on Tuesday, will start off with the replacement of 155 fixtures and bulbs between Texas and Georgia avenues, from Boardwalk to bay.
Atlantic City Planning and Development Director Elizabeth Terenik said that the city plans to split the cost on a pro-rated basis with the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority, with operates the Tourism District south of Atlantic Avenue.
The city has also applied to the state Bureau of Public Utilities for a $175-per-light rebate on the approximate $400 cost of the lights, as part of the elaborately named New Jersey Clean Energy Program Commercial Industrial Prescription Measures Program. As part of the program, the city would buy the lights before any rebate or cost-splitting is applied.
“We have two objectives,” said Terenik. “To create a more well-lit environment, and also to save money in costs. LED lights have a lower tariff cost, and that (can pay) for the maintenance of the lights.
The LED lights are more efficient, using between 35 to 70 percent less energy depending on size and have a lifespan of about 20 years compared to about five for a normal, high-pressure sodium light, said Mike Picucci, manager of special projects for Atlantic City Electric.
“And there’s less maintenance,” Picucci said. “For a regular light, if a bulb goes bad, the whole fixture goes. On LEDs, if one diode goes bad, there’s enough (left over) to continue on without repairs.”
While there have been complaints about the increased glare and blue-white coloring in cities such that have switched to LED streetlights — “I don’t hate them so much as I did at first,” Seattle light-pollution watchdog Bruce Weertman told Crosscut.com in 2013 — but Picucci said the LEDs provide a “crisper, clearer light” that also creates less of the “uplighting” to the sky that affects bird migrations.
Still, said Gilliam, “The number one thing it does is to add sustainable components to the city. It will be a tremendous savings on electric bills, and that’s very important in this economic climate. … And it does brighten the neighborhood.”
Ducktown Tavern owner John Exadaktilos praised the lighting program, but said that “it’s something that should have been done years ago.”
Ducktown patron Jim Gorman, a Chelsea Heights resident, said he can see why tourists are told to avoid walking the dark streets.
“Going towards Arctic, it’s dark all the way (down),” Gorman said. “I wouldn’t walk down that. And I live here.”
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