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City, BC Hydro light up Tyner Boulevard

Tyner Boulevard became a lot brighter Tuesday night when the city lit up its new lease with BC Hydro for the first time. Almost three dozen lights now line the roadway after construction over the past week or so was finalized.
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BC Hydro employees Randy Robertson, Ed Brigden, Cathy Bryant and Bob Gammer and Mayor Lyn Hall officially launched a series of streetlights on Tyner Boulevard on Wednesday evening. The additional 33 lights mean Tyner Boulevard is now lit from Highway 16 to Foothills Boulevard.

Tyner Boulevard became a lot brighter Tuesday night when the city lit up its new lease with BC Hydro for the first time.

Almost three dozen lights now line the roadway after construction over the past week or so was finalized.

"From a safety perspective this is great news for motorists, cyclist, motorcycle riders, even the pedestrians who use the pathway that parallels Tyner," said Mayor Lyn Hall. "It means a great deal."

In December city council approved a plan to partner with BC Hydro's pole replacement project.

That meant it would rent street lights to tie in with the building of the new infrastructure - wooden poles to replace concrete ones.

As a main arterial road connecting College Heights, Highway 16 and the University of Northern B.C., Hall said that extra visibility will make an immediate difference.

"It has a considerable amount of traffic especially given the fact we have three major subdivisions on Tyner," said Hall, adding the extra illumination should give drivers a better chance to react to animals near the road. "There's a tremendous amount of wildlife in that area."

Hall said he was already getting good feedback Wednesday morning, especially from UNBC students and faculty, as well as users of the Northern Sports Centre.

The new lights are a placeholder until Tyner is turned into a four-lane thoroughfare - but that is a few years off, said Hall.

"I think that's quite a number of years down the road."

Council heard installing the interim lights would cost $55,138 plus GST as well as $9,021 per year to operate them.

The city previously earmarked $75,000 for that capital project, with designs expected to start this year for permanent lighting, though Hall could not say when that would start.

The placeholder lights are similar to those along Foothills Boulevard between First and 15th Avenues, said public works general manager Dave Dyer in December.

"There's definitely lots of community requests for the lighting there and it certainly will improve the situation. But as I said, not to the standards that we would normally design to because the trail is a little bit farther over. You'll be able to see but it won't be as clear as it would if it was to the standard we would normally design to," Dyer said.

In October, council first heard improvements were planned along Tyner Boulevard, including street lights, bus pullouts and traffic calming.

The call to double the lanes invokes the initial plan for the boulevard when it was built in 1994. Instead of four, the city opted for two when UNBC was built to reduce the initial capital cost and save on operational costs such as snow clearing.

Since then, the Westgate commercial developments on Highway 16 West and Domano Boulevard and in University Heights have all increased traffic volumes along that roadway.

Hall gave special thanks to BC Hydro for its partnership and help stringing the lights up so quickly.

"Hydro staff... from the admin side to the workers that did the installation were excellent to deal with."

-- with files from Charelle Evelyn