Traceway lighting improvements underway

What Clinton officials have called the “largest sports lighting project in state history” is taking shape at Traceway Park. Work is getting underway to replace the wooden poles with metal ones and to install brighter and more energy-efficient LED lights at two dozen athletic fields.

The new lights should create safer playing conditions by eliminating shadows on the fields, while reducing light pollution affecting nearby neighborhoods. The steel poles will be sturdier, also, helping to protect players and spectators. The City’s goal is to have the lights ready for this year’s baseball and soccer seasons.

Clinton is using a $12 million bond issue to pay for those improvements and a couple of other lighting projects. The City will be extending the Clinton Parkway’s decorative lights to the north, adding seventy-seven lamp posts along Pinehaven Drive from Northside Drive to Arrow Drive.

The third project is buying Clinton’s street lights from Entergy. Mayor Phil Fisher says, by not paying rent on the lights, the City can save about $400,000 a year, which is enough to pay off the purchase over five years.