Purpose: To reduce the City’s energy consumption and maintenance costs, improve the quality of light on the City’s streets and sidewalks, and minimize or eliminate hazardous waste.

On December 16, 2008, San Jose adopted the Public Street Lighting policy to help advance the City’s Green Vision goals, in particular Goal #9, to replace 100% of streetlights with smart, zero emission ones by 2022. The new policy seeks to convert current City streetlights from sodium-based to new ones based on the following performance characteristics:
• Programmable
• Energy-efficient
• Long lasting
• Constructed with low/minimal hazardous materials

Additionally, other performance-based practices to achieve low emissions from public streetlights include:
• Lighting curfews
• Metering streetlights
• Developing an energy cap

Legal Issues:

The adoption of the proposed policy is categorically exempt from the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per Section 15308 of the CEQA guidelines.

In October 2008, the City issued a Request for Proposals for 100 programmable energy efficient streetlights that will be installed in Spring 2009 in a low-income residential neighborhood. The lights, which are funded by a federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), would comply with the new Public Streetlighting policy.

Funding for the program is supported by Federal Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).