Ask CITYVIEW

When will the lighting be fixed on the north end of the Coleman Bridge, where walkers/bikers are in the dark after sunset?

We forwarded your question to the City of Des Moines. Here is the answer: “The lights on the Coleman Bridge have unfortunately been the target of recurring vandalism and component theft. Because of the extensive damage, simply replacing the parts hasn’t been enough; troubleshooting the entire electrical system to get everything running safely has proven to be a complex challenge. While our teams are actively working on solutions, we do not have a definitive completion date for the full repair at this time.” 

Lighting around Gray’s Lake trail has many fewer lights out this summer, but still too many. The unlighted parts are downright dangerous after sunset. When will the lights be fixed?

We also forwarded this similar question to the City of Des Moines, and here is the answer: “Safety is a top priority, and being seen on trails is important. While our maintenance crews have made progress reducing the number of outages, we know there is still work to do to keep existing fixtures operational and repair work will be completed in a timely manner as resources and staff allow. Please note that large portions of the trail system are not designed to be illuminated. Because significant stretches are intended to remain unlit, we strongly encourage all trail users, especially bicyclists and walkers out after sunset, to bring a personal headlamp, flashlight or bike light to ensure you can safely see and be seen by others.”

What’s up with the WHO tower across Grand from Central Campus and its strobe lights? It feels like being in a club with bright flashing lights all night long in my apartment bedroom.

We forwarded this message to WHO13. They replied to the reader who asked this question, who shared the response from Brad Jurrens, Chief Engineer at WHO13: “Yes, we’re aware of the tower lighting issue downtown. It’s a failure in a control board which is preventing our mid-level beacons from going to night-mode properly. We should be able to force the system into night-mode manually, but that’s part of the failure. The same control board that triggers our top beacon also controls the triggering in and out of night-mode and it’s getting stuck in day mode, most likely as a safety to make sure the tower was seen at all times of day in the event of a control board failure like this. We’ve had three of these control boards fail in the last 18 months so we’re replacing the tower lighting system to take care of this issue permanently. We ordered a replacement system at the end of June, and we’re expecting delivery the first week of August from the manufacturer; then we’ll have our installers in as soon as possible to perform the system swap. I apologize for the inconvenience, and the extra light, but know we are working on getting it replaced as soon as possible. I’m being sticky with the installation vendor to make sure it doesn’t slide any further into August then necessary. If you have any other questions, please let me know. Thanks.”  n