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Lights Are Back On at City's First Solar-Powered Bus Stop

By Noah Hurowitz | January 6, 2017 5:16pm | Updated on January 8, 2017 6:11pm
 The bus shelter at East 16th Street and Avenue C was once again bathed in a cheerful blue glow on Thursday night, days after DNAinfo reported the shelter was once again languishing in darkness.
The bus shelter at East 16th Street and Avenue C was once again bathed in a cheerful blue glow on Thursday night, days after DNAinfo reported the shelter was once again languishing in darkness.
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DNAinfo/Noah Hurowitz

STUYVESANT TOWN — The lights are back on at the city's first solar-powered bus shelter — a day after DNAinfo reported that it had gone dark.

The southbound M9 bus stop at East 16th Street and Avenue C — which got a solar-powered lighting system in March as part of a pilot program by JCDecaux, an outdoor advertising company — went dark some time last month, locals said.

But after a DNAinfo story about locals' frustration with the Department of Transportation — which left the shelter dark for seven years the last time the lights were cut by Con Ed, which operates a facility across the street  —  the lights were back on on Wednesday.

"When I got off at my M9 stop, the lights were back on — thanks, I believe to the boost given by your excellent DNAinfo article yesterday," Community Board 6 Transportation Committee member Lawrence Scheyer said in an email Wednesday.

Representatives of the Department of Transportation and JCDecaux did not respond to several requests for comment.

JCDecaux installed the solar-powered lights in March 2016, the first in a pilot program for solar-powered bus shelters in the city. The lights were a welcome addition at the shelter, which had been in darkness for seven years ever since Con Ed, which operates a facility across the street, disconnected the shelter from its power source in 2009.

But the lights flickered off about eight months after they came on, according to Scheyer.

Residents warned the darkness on the corner made it difficult to hail buses at night.

In November, 88-year-old Stella Huang died after the driver of a Con Ed truck struck her in the intersection, which locals blamed on the darkness.