At night they light our way home, on some streets there are twice as many street lamps as necessary. What’s with the double lights?
The picture around Greifswalder, Grellstrasse and Storkower Strasse is strange: Where there is usually a street lamp, there has been a lampless mast next to it for some time.
Reason: The old, ungalvanized steel masts from the 1960s are showing their age and need to be replaced. “Due to the lack of galvanizing, there is a need for action due to corrosion,” says Jan Thomsen, spokesman for the traffic administration. The material’s biggest enemy is dog urine!
A total of 248 masts will be replaced in the neighborhood. Total costs: a whopping 1.56 million euros.
But the installation takes time. “The old light poles will be replaced by initially installing the new light poles in parallel,” says Thomsen. “Then comes the grid connection, which the power grid operator has to establish.” The old ones are only taken off the grid and dismantled when the new masts have been connected to the power grid and are operational. The project should be completed by mid-July.
The lanterns on Greifswalder and Storkower Straße were already converted to LED in 2017 and 2019. The same lamps will be installed on the new poles. The Grellstrasse now also has LED lighting.
2000 light poles are checked annually in Berlin. In addition, maintenance takes place every four years. So that the capital city sees a light every evening.