The Madison City Council unanimously voted to brighten up the city as plans to expand lighting in Districts 4, 5 and 8 were approved.

In Ald. Mike Verveer’s District 4, residential lighting will be expanded in the West Gilman Street area.

According to Verveer, the lighting is in conjunction with street reconstruction projects.

“It’s all about the importance of safety of lighting, improving pedestrian lighting to brighten up the street and sidewalk,” Verveer said.

The lighting will be on public property throughout the city, Verveer added, but the property owners benefiting from the lighting increase will assess the cost of the lighting.

Verveer said in his district, the area between University Avenue and State Street, will see increased lighting this summer, as will the area from University Avenue to North Henry Street in the summer of 2010.

“I worked very hard for many years to get pedestrian lighting in my district whenever we redo a street,” Verveer said.

The city is looking to implement pedestrian level lighting, which will bring lights closer to the ground so the streetlights are not obstructed by trees in the spring and summer, Verveer said.

Pedestrian lighting will also be installed on North Randall Street, which is between the eighth and fifth districts.

“When it comes to issues of safety, especially in densely populated areas where there’s a lot of students, this one way to help the local neighborhood,” Ald. Bryon Eagon, District 8, said.

Ald. Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, District 5, agreed lighting is the right step the city needs to take to improve downtown safety.

“I have a very large student constituent … certainly on the east side of the district,” Bidar-Sielaff said. “[The lighting] really provides good measures of safety in the area, and places will have better lighting, and it will be less likely for criminal activity to go on.”

Eagon also mentioned the Downtown Residential Lighting Initiative, which set asides $50,000 in grant money for landlords and property owners to install lighting on the sides and backs of buildings.

According to Eagon, the DRLI, authored by former Ald. Eli Judge, was passed in the city budget last fall and will be put into works in the next few weeks.

Eagon said he has a meeting today with city staff to “spearhead” Judge’s project and determine how the grant money can be allocated to property owners to fund the lighting.

Verveer said the city is looking to reimburse landlords up to half the cost to encourage them to install residential property lighting. The city is now working to get the project off the ground, and in a few months it will come back to the city council for resolution.

“I think its great, and I’m very thankful to outgoing Ald. Eli Judge for bringing the issue forth…,” Bidar-Sielaff said.