Dr. Richard Grossman never paid attention to the nighttime lighting in downtown Durango until he was hit by a car while crossing Main Avenue.
He doesn’t remember the impact; he woke up in a CT scanner at Mercy Regional Medical Center with road rash and a broken bone in his right ankle.
“I’ve been very much aware since then that it’s sometimes difficult to see pedestrians, and I can understand he (the driver) may have not seen me,” Grossman said.
The city of Durango plans to improve downtown lighting early next year by adding lamp posts and replacing the LED bulbs in all downtown lights, which are nearing the end of their usable life, said Levi Lloyd, director of city operations.
“I think we will have support for this,” he said.
Meanwhile, some residents have complained about a lack of street lights for drivers on South Camino del Rio, from Santa Rita Park to Farmington Hill, and on U.S. Highway 160 through the Grandview area. The busy corridor is overseen by the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Durango resident Jerri Uhl said the lack of lighting combined with the concrete barrier in the middle of South Camino del Rio makes it difficult for drivers to see wildlife on the side of the road.
“When you drive down a road without barriers, your headlights sprawl out in front of you to both sides of highway,” Uhl said. “But with the barriers, it doesn’t light up the opposite side of the road.”
Uhl said she once flashed her lights to warn oncoming traffic of baby deer crossing the road, but it was to no avail; drivers on the other side couldn’t see her lights and two deer were struck.
The problem is worse when the highway is wet from rain or snowmelt, which makes road markings impossible to see, she said.
Intersections along South Camino del Rio have street lighting, but the corridor itself does not. The highway department typically works with municipalities to coordinate lighting through cities and towns, but CDOT hasn’t received any complaints from drivers or requests from the city to improve lighting through that corridor, said Lisa Schwantes, spokeswoman for the agency.
“We don’t have a specific and hard-fast criteria for installing lighting,” she said. “It’s always something that we work with the local community on. Of course, we are always looking at safety, crash history, other site specifics for that specific roadway that we would be considering.”
The city’s dark skies ordinance prohibits businesses from installing overly bright lights, and guidelines suggest street lights be pointed downward. The goal is to prevent unnecessary light pollution.
Durango Mayor Dick White, a proponent of the ordinance, said more lighting is not necessarily better; the trick is to install the right kind of lighting. Bluer lights scatter more and reflect off the pavement into the sky and actually make it harder to see at night, he said, while redder lights are easier on the eyes and create less light pollution.
“Nobody wants unsafe streets,” White said. “I think the goal is to have enough lighting that the streets are safe. The trick is to get good lighting.”
The city was an early adopter of LED technology in the Central Business District. The lights were installed in 2010 or 2011 in the city’s old gas lamp-style fixtures. Since then, LED technology has grown by “leaps and bounds,” Lloyd said.
“The lights that we would be putting in are – it’s a bad pun, but they’re light-years ahead of what we installed to begin with,” he said.
The city considered raising the height of the lamp posts, which would illuminate a greater area of the ground, but replacing them with taller posts would be expensive and potentially violates the city’s dark-skies ordinance.
The city has two lamp posts at each intersection from College Drive (Sixth Street) to 13th Street. The lamp posts are catty-corner to one another at every intersection. The idea is to add two more lamp posts to intersections that don’t have traffic signals. It’s less of an issue at the signaled intersections, he said, because pedestrians have crosswalk signals.
The city plans to keep the acorn-shaped light fixtures, but they will have a cast-iron cut-off at the top to prevent light from shooting into the sky, Lloyd said.
Grossman was hit by a Geo Prizm about 5:40 p.m. Nov. 22 while crossing Main Avenue at Seventh Street.
The driver, Scott Huff, 58, of Durango, apparently didn’t see Grossman in the crosswalk.
Grossman said he now tries to wear bright clothing at night in downtown Durango, and he’s purchased a can of Albedo100 reflective spray, which can be applied to clothing and is reflective in low-light conditions.
“I suspect I’m like most people, that I don’t pay much attention to the lighting, although I have been a little traumatized by what happened to me,” he said. “I’m much more cautious when I’m crossing now. I haven’t jaywalked, although that was my habit in the past.”
Downtown is busy with pedestrians, bikers and drivers, and the city should make it feel safe for everyone, he said. The speed limit on Main Avenue is 25 mph. Perhaps the city should consider reducing the speed limit to 15 mph, which is what Telluride has done, he said.
“It’s bad for business – except for the health care business – for people to be hit,” he said.
shane@durangoherald.com
