Chapter 14 - Lighting

14.1. General Considerations

14.1.5. Roadway Lighting Plan Preparation

The Office of Road & Airport Design’s Roadway Lighting Group shall coordinate the preparation of lighting plans for all Let and Force Account projects for but is not limited to the following:

• road design

• urban design

• consultant design

• all District Offices

• Office of Maintenance

• other State agencies (i.e. Jekyll Island Authority)

• local governments (County and City)

Lighting plans shall not be developed
until after an executed lighting agreement is in place.

All roadway lighting must be included in GDOT’s environmental evaluation processes.  Most stand-alone lighting projects are handled with a Categorical Exclusion (CE) Environmental Document.  This applies to Let or Force Account projects. 

For roadway projects that lighting is added to after the Environmental Document has been prepared, coordination with GDOT’s Office of Environment/Location (OEL) is needed to ensure there are no historical or environmental conflicts.  NEPA clearance can take up to 6 months to acquire dependent on the sensitivity of the site.  Some examples of environmental and historical conflicts that can affect roadway lighting are:

• Endangered species: Sea turtles in coastal regions.

• Archeological conflicts: Indian mounds and other archeologically significant sites.

• Historic resources: Light trespass into historic districts or individual properties.  Height restrictions adjacent to historic or individual properties.

• Environmental conflicts: Wetland impacts requiring directional bore in place of traditional trenching to run conduits.  Possible restrictions as to the limits of vegetative clearing.

The preparation of lighting plans that are to be included in a parent set of roadway or maintenance plans should not be started until AFTER the PFPR comments have been implemented into the roadway plans.  The horizontal and vertical alignments, bridges plans, drainage, proposed utility plans etc. need to be set before the lighting plans can be developed. 

When requesting lighting plans for inclusion in parent project, a request must be sent to the Roadway Lighting Group with the following information:

• Confirmation of an executed Local Government Lighting Project Agreement (LGLPA) for the site (handled by request to the Roadway Lighting Group)

• Parent Project Number and PI Number

• Current Management Let Date

• Brief description of site and work to be covered by the lighting plans

• Proposed delivery date for Final Lighting Plans

The Roadway Lighting Group will prepare a scope and man hour esimate to include with each request for a Task Order Contract for lighting plans.  After the Roadway Lighting Group has requested the Task Order and approval for the Task Order has been received; Program Delivery issues the Task Order through the Lighting Master Task Order cotnract or through the general Master Task Order Contracts.

Once the design consultant has been selected the following information will be required from the Project Manager:

• CD with the DGN files for the plan view covering the area to be lighted (minimum 1,000-ft. before the exit ramp gores and 1,000-ft. beyond the entrance gores along the interstate if interchange lighting).

• Full-size hardcopy set: cover, typical sections, plan, profile, drainage cross-sections/profiles, bridge plan and elevation (for all bridges located within the proposed lighting boundaries) and proposed utility plans.