Three months of darkness on Centennial Park Blvd.
City has not fixed broken street lights despite numerous requests from the public
The longest, darkest street in the city has to be Centennial Park Blvd., where every light has been out for three months.
Reports of damage from the July 8 storm that eclipsed the single-day rainfall record for Toronto continue to roll in, which makes it hard to put a definitive figure on the final repair bill.
We’re still getting complaints about flood damage to bridges and paths near waterways that overflowed, but a less obvious problem is only now coming to light. A reader reported on SeeClickFix that all streetlights on Centennial Park Blvd., which runs between Rathburn Rd. and Eglinton Ave. W., failed during the rainstorm.
“Three months after they went out, they still have not been restored,” said the reader, adding he reported it on the Toronto Hydro website about two weeks after the storm, and again by phone after a month.
“This poses a serious hazard for cyclists or pedestrians on this road after dark, as there is no other lighting and no sidewalks.”
We went there Saturday night and drove from Rathburn to Eglinton, a distance of several kilometres, but of approximately 80 lights along the length of the four-lane street, not one was working.
The lights are at the end of arms mounted to poles along a centre median that are also strung with high-voltage power lines, so there should be no shortage of electricity. But they are more likely powered by an underground grid line that connects every light on the street, which would explain why they all went out at once.
It’s odd that Toronto Hydro hasn’t fixed them, despite two complaints from the reader and others likely made by other people who live in the area. Status: We’ve emailed Hydro to ask what the holdup is in repairing the lights. What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To contact us, go to thestar.com/ thefixer or call us at 416-869-4823. To read our blog, go to thestar.blogs.com/thefixer. Follow us on Twitter @TOStarFixer.