City to upgrade streetlights with LEDs by 2017

Soon, New Yorkers will see the Big Apple in a new light.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan announced Thursday that work began to convert all of the city’s 250,000 streetlights with energy-efficient LED bulbs by 2017.

The upgrade is the largest LED retrofit project in the nation and will save the city $14 million a year and reduce New York’s carbon footprint by 30% in the next four years, according to the mayor.

“With roughly a quarter-million streetlights in our city, upgrading to more energy efficient lights is a large and necessary feat,” he said in a statement.

The city has already installed light-emitting diode bulbs on Manhattan’s FDR Drive, along Central Park’s pedestrian paths, on the lights that adorn the cables of the East River bridges and at Eastern Parkway’s pedestrian lights between Grand Army Plaza and Ralph Avenue in Brooklyn.

David J. Burney, commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction, said the Brooklyn location was the perfect place to roll out the LED lights.

“This project ... brought new median plazas, bike and pedestrian paths, water and sewer mains, and landscaping to one of Brooklyn’s most well-traveled roadways,” he said in a statement.

The city will install the remaining lights in three phases that will replace 80,000 lights at a time throughout the five boroughs.

The $100 million project will be paid through the city’s Accelerated Conservation and Efficiency initiative, which aims to fast-track green infrastructure programs.