Sunnyvale benefits from over 8,800 street lights illuminating our streets after dark. Street lights vary from the 70-watt residential lights, to the 200-watt arterial lamps, and even special period-style lamps in downtown. Sunnyvale uses high-pressure sodium lamps, requiring half of the power of the once-standard mercury vapor lamps. Maintenance of the street lights is performed by the Field Services Division of Public Works.

Street lights are differentiated from traffic control signals. The red/amber/green traffic control signals (and flashing yellow and red, etc.) are maintained by the Transportation and Traffic Division of Public Works. Currently, maintenance and repair of our traffic control devices is contracted out to a specialist firm. The street lights on the top of poles which are also used for traffic control devices are called "safety lights." The safety lights ARE maintained by Field Services.

Field Services workers survey the City’s major streets periodically at night and repair light outages. On neighborhood streets, and between arterial surveys the City relies upon residents who call or e-mail to report failing lights. City lights that require lamp replacement or electrical repair are promptly corrected.

About 10% of the street lights in Sunnyvale are owned by PG&E. These are usually identifiable as being the street lights mounted on wood poles. If these lights fail, or if the outage in a City light is due to a PG&E power problem, then correction of the problem may take longer. The City is not able to fix power supply problems or repair PG&E lamps. We report the failure to PG&E and follow-up periodically until the repair is completed.

Another feature maintained by the workers in Field Services are the lamps in the internally illuminated street name signs. The internally illuminated signs are only used in certain areas, primarily the downtown area and along arterials. Transportation and Traffic maintains enclosures including the part of the signs that have the street name (the green covering).

Report outages of street lights, safety lights, and internally illuminated street name signs to the Field Services Division of Public Works at (408) 730-7510. Problems with traffic control devices, or for broken or unreadable illuminated street names can also be reported to Field Services, or can be communicated to the Traffic and Transportation Division at (408) 730-7415. You can also e-mail any of these requests to the Public Works Department at pubworks@ci.sunnyvale.ca.us.