Two incumbent city councillors in Windsor running for re-election have committed to making parks across the city safer and more walkable for residents.
Ward 9 councillor Kieran McKenzie and Ward 10 councillor Jim Morrison have been using Ward funds to install solar lights in a number of parks in their wards over the past few years.
The increasing usage of the parks has seen many residents inquiring about adding lights wherever they aren't in place, according to the councillors.
At a joint announcement on Thursday, both Morrison and McKenzie said they're looking for City Administration to bring back recommendations for an implementation process for the next council to add solar lights to every park in Windsor where there is either an existing trail, or will have a trail installed.
McKenzie says the solar lights bring a lot of benefits.
"The solar lights are obviously a carbon-neutral option, are easy to install and a very affordable option. So it's an option that's environmentally friendly and easy to implement because it doesn't require a hard line power connection in order for these lights to function. You simply install a pole, purchase the light, affix the light to the pole and they function," he said.
Morrison says they really noticed during the pandemic that people wanted to get outside, and being able to provide an amenity to make that easier and safer is a no-brainer.
"We both have been talking about getting this done, not only in our wards where we've made it a priority, but we've seen how popular they are. People are sending us messages all the time saying thank you so much for putting in lights because it feels so much safer when it gets dark or early in the morning if they want to walk their dogs."
McKenzie said a year ago it cost $1,200 per light for the installation fee, which rose to $1,800 per light in the recent improvements done in Calderwood Park.
He says the most important thing to note is in his discussions with parks administration in terms of the costs, they'd be looking at adding a 10% cost to any trail remediation.
"For example on a per annum basis we have $100,000 that's allocated to trail remediation across the city," he continued. "So if we were to take that budget and use the 10% number, we'd be talking about $10,000 per year to essentially get caught up. So it's a very affordable number."
Morrison says what they're doing today is saying they've got more than one councillor that believes that this is a good thing, and administration should realize that.
"They can start working months ahead, we're about four months away from budget time. We're asking them to come back and be ready for implementing lighting in all of our parks. There's several ways to finance this in the future, in the past we've used Ward funds, but we could be using funds that are there for maintenance in parks that already exists," Morrison said.
Both councillors believe solar lights should be installed across the city, and have introduced Council Questions that will give council the opportunity to light up virtually every parkland trail across the city.