KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Your drive along Interstate 670 under Bartle Hall in downtown Kansas City will get brighter.
On Thursday, the city's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a project to replace and add more lighting under the convention center.
The project manager said the goal of the upgrade is to improve safety for drivers.
"It will give the motorists an opportunity to have better visibility, greater visibility down the highway. And allow them to make decisions about which direction they are going to go, which highway they want to take," said Michael Saye with Kansas City Public Works.
He explained the current lights are outdated and do not meet current standards.
The $7.5 million plan will replace existing lights with LED fixtures and add more lights along the interstate. LED lights use less energy which should save the city money on its electric costs.
The public works department will be able to adjust the brightness of the new LED lights to better match conditions during the day and night.
"We’ll have a nighttime, we’ll have a dawn to dusk time. We’ll have a day medium, we’ll have a day bright so we’re going to use those features at this point but we do have the capability of increasing the system," Saye explained.
The project will take more than one year to complete. Work should begin next month.
