Rhode Island Rte. 37 in need of relamping

[Mike]

EDIT/UPDATE:

NGrid has confirmed the lights out that I reported and has issued a "multiple lights out work order" as opposed to issuing 30+ individual "light out" work orders. Anyway, customer service said that it will take longer than the typical 7-10 business days because a police detail is required and if there are electrical issues (which I believe there are, since lights that they recently fixed have gone out in groups) it will take "several weeks" to troubleshoot those issues as well. So let's see what happens. I noticed a bunch of construction cones alongside the shoulders of the freeway (lights are on both sides of the shoulder in an alternating fashion) so maybe they're actually going to try and fix these this time.

[Mike]

Anyway, most of these lights were fixed in 2015. NGrid spent like two weeks with their wiring trucks snaking new wiring between many of the poles and installing lots of brand-new M-250R2s. They had gotten most of the lights working and replaced a few poles but many poles were still left missing and some lights were never fixed.

BUT... Sometime in 2016 one of the ramps went totally out. Then another. Then after a recent snow storm last week, virtually the entire interchange went BLACK! I emailed RIDOT and they said to allow several weeks for planning and more favorable weather conditions. I also reported a string of RIDOT-owned LEDs that were failing on Rte 37. I noticed today that RIDOT was already fixing the LEDs that they owned. No progress on the NGrid lights though. RIDOT's gotta contact them, they'll drag their feet, come out and take a look at what is wrong, come back a month or two later and actually fix the lights, and then next storm we get water will get inside a manhole or something and short the circuit out again. Happens EVERY time! Fortunately most of what they rewired is still working, but they only rewired maybe a quarter to a third of the interchange.