Cambridge council to consider upgrades to light poles in Dickson Hill area

Keeping the charm of the old-fashioned green light poles around a Cambridge heritage neighbourhood will come with a very up-to-date price tag of almost $800,000.

There are 245 of the nine-foot tall, green light standards with a white globe light on top around the Dickson Hill heritage neighbourhood, and elsewhere in downtown Galt.

But they’re aging, and need to be replaced and upgraded.

City staff have made their recommendation on the best of three options.

They recommend using standardized but still decorative and still green aluminum light poles.

The look of the white globe lights can stay, but they should be upgraded to LED technology.

The other options were to use concrete poles, or try to reproduce the original metal poles exactly as they look now.

Staff discovered that would require manufacturing a mold, and buying 100 units just to start.

That would have cost $1,103,030 in total, and the cost per pole was three times more expensive than the aluminum poles.

The staff recommendation comes up at Cambridge council on Tuesday night.