Parks in the Dark: I

As college student Sophia Johnson strolled Constitution Gardens on a recent evening, the News4 I-Team found her on a dimly lit path just after dark.

"I didn’t mean to surprise you in the dark," we told Johnson, who was out for a walk — but the lack of light is what brought us there.

When we told Texas tourist Christian Jayme, “We’re working on a story about lights in the national parks,” Jayme offered, "Or the lack thereof," without prompting.

A tip to the I-Team let us know lights were out in the park and some light poles were completely missing. The tipster, who didn’t want us to share his name, went on to tell the I-Team about lights out along Constitution Gardens, Constitution Avenue and on other park land, too.

This is just part of what we read in the tip:

“I counted 29 lights that were flickering on and off or completely burnt out on Constitution Ave. between 17th and 23rd streets NW and numerous lights at the Washington Circle and Dupont Circle Parks that were no longer working. In addition, on the north side of Constitution Garden I identified ten light poles that were knocked down years ago and never replaced. Rather the NPS's solution was to cover the base of each pole with an unsightly wood box. Let me emphasize, this is not a complete inventory of unacceptable lighting conditions, just a sample that I noticed while walking on National Mall grounds. These conditions represent serious safety issues whose resolution should be a NPS priority.”

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The I-Team doesn’t expect that much surveillance from every tipster, but we were happy to get it, and when we checked for ourselves many of the lights were still out.

News4 found streetlights blinking on all four sides of an intersection along Independence Avenue.

At the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the light at the entrance was out, at least on the night we were there. Along the wall of the memorial, Dr. King’s words are still powerful as ever, but the lights under some of them were not.

At Dupont Circle, a park under National Park Service (NPS) control, the fountain is under repair again, and so were some of the lights. A few days later, we caught crews working the weekend to light up the park again.

The NPS admits they just don’t have enough staff electricians to keep up with the outages. Spokesperson Mike Litterst told the I-Team the NPS had 10 electricians before the pandemic, but is now down to just two. Litterst said the NPS can’t compete with post-pandemic electrician wages in the private sector.

“The [lights are] vitally important," Litterst told the News4 I-Team. "They provide not only scenery, if you will. You know, a walk through the National Mall after dark is one of the most beautiful places in the city, but they're also important for the safety of our visitors.”

When the I-Team obtained records from the NPS on broken lights, the records showed just one open maintenance item. Even Litterst knows that’s not true. He says a recent inventory shows 93% of their 2,400 lights poles are working, but admitted, "That means you're dealing with 160 or 170 that are probably out at any given time."

An NPS superintendent responded to our tipster about the lights being out. The superintendent didn’t find as many in the dark along Constitution Avenue but admitted in an email to the tipster shared with the I-Team, "We’ve had problems with the lighting in this area as our contractor went bankrupt and abandoned their contract."

Constitution Gardens was the worst spot we found. Litterst said the last time that section of the mall was renovated was in 1976 for the United States' bicentennial. That was nearly 50 years ago now, and the gardens are showing their age.

Around the pond, we found a dozen lights or more were out, some light poles didn't have lamps, others were broken but still there, and plenty of plywood boxes marking the trail.

Those boxes, painted black and striped with yellow tape, stand out along the trail. Underneath are what remains of light poles that once lined the pond. Time took some, and a lack of maintenance brought more down. The poles haven’t been replaced. The boxes were a temporary solution. Even Litterst admits it may be the best one: "The boxes certainly aren't as attractive as the light poles that should be there, but they're more attractive and they're safer than an exposed light base."

“I feel like they could fix them,” Johnson told the I-Team. “They probably have the money.”

The NPS does have the money to buy new poles and now has the supplies to fix them, Litterst assured us — but they don’t have the workers to do it.

However, the NPS recently signed on a contractor to do electrical repair, and this summer, a group of retired union electricians, the United Sportsmen Alliance, will volunteer the labor to get those light poles back up. A full renovation of the park and the outdated and dysfunctional wiring underground won’t be finished until 2026, the country’s 250th birthday. An NPS superintendent wrote our tipster, some of the wiring and lighting was “beyond [its] useful life.”

The NPS says they will continue to work with contractors and may partner with business improvement districts.

The plan shows progress but may take some time. Johnson, the college student, urged the NPS: “Please fix it. Seriously. Like, it could definitely be an issue at some point.”

The NPS not only controls areas around the monuments and the National Mall, but NPS crews also are responsible for more than 130 parks all over Washington, D.C.

Litterst acknowledged that the NPS can’t see all the broken lights as fast as Washingtonians or tourists can. The District's 311 system doesn’t go to the NPS, but social media does. Litterst says tagging them in a post about a broken light is the fastest way for them to find out. Their handle is @NationalMallNPS, and Litterst says that gets their attention.

CORRECTION (May 8, 2023, 1:37 p.m.): An earlier version of this article misstated the NPS' National Mall social media handle.