Let volunteers know how they should contact you (e.g. Thank you for your interest in volunteering. Please email Peter Smith at [email protected] or 973-121-1212 to coordinate next steps.).
A few months ago, Montclair residents voted on PLANETCIVIC to improve lighting and visibility in town. This proposal received more than 100 votes in favor and only a few votes against, making it the second most voted on initiative in PLANETCIVIC. From the voting data, PLANETCIVIC knew there was a problem with street lighting in Montclair, that the darkness made many people felt unsafe, but we struggled with the question of how to provide actionable information to the town. So PLANETCIVIC called on Montclair residents to help crowdsource those places and intersections in town that are perceived to be dangerously dark. As a result of this initiative, a number of intersections and crossings were identified. In addition, while verifying these locations, PLANETCIVIC realized that there was a shocking number of broken streetlights in town. Based on our conversations with town officials, we soon realized that installing new streetlights and upgrading the street lighting infrastructure in town...
View more
A few months ago, Montclair residents voted on PLANETCIVIC to improve lighting and visibility in town. This proposal received more than 100 votes in favor and only a few votes against, making it the second most voted on initiative in PLANETCIVIC. From the voting data, PLANETCIVIC knew there was a problem with street lighting in Montclair, that the darkness made many people felt unsafe, but we struggled with the question of how to provide actionable information to the town. So PLANETCIVIC called on Montclair residents to help crowdsource those places and intersections in town that are perceived to be dangerously dark. As a result of this initiative, a number of intersections and crossings were identified. In addition, while verifying these locations, PLANETCIVIC realized that there was a shocking number of broken streetlights in town. Based on our conversations with town officials, we soon realized that installing new streetlights and upgrading the street lighting infrastructure in town was a multimillion dollar investment that might be difficult to tackle at this point in time. But fixing broken lights fell under the responsibility of PSE&G, which we thought would be an easier issue to tackle first. So, over the spring, we drove around town mapping with geolocators all broken lights in Montclair. The result of this effort is the map that you see here. We will present this information to the town by the end of the month. Before doing so, please check the information in the map below and let us know if the streetlight in front of your house is broken. If it is, please simply email [email protected] the location that is missing or ask for editing rights to edit it on the map itself. Please note that the map contains two types of problems: 1) Broken street lights and 2) Dark corners with no street lighting. Choose the right layer to see each one of these two types of problems. Email us too if you are interested in helping us maintain this map going forward or use it for other purposes in town. --