Iowa State is one step closer to seeing improved lighting due to a campus lighting survey conducted Thursday night by the Government of the Student Body and other ISU officials and students.

GSB President Bryan Burkhardt said steps can now be taken to start improving the lighting on campus.

“Facilities and Planning Management is going to begin to replace lights that are out or cycling,” he said. “They are also going to begin to draw up some price estimates that it would take to begin working on suggestions we outlined in the survey.”

Burkhardt said the administrators and students who participated in the survey were able to identify many areas on campus where lighting must be improved.

“One hundred eighteen area locations that we identified are indicated on the list that either need improved lighting or have recommendations to be fixed,” he said.

“Most of them are lights that are out, but some of them do need additional lighting. Some of these are also vegetation problems, such as trees that need to be trimmed back,” he said.

Burkhardt said some places were identified as in need of additional lighting.

“Some areas that we found were areas such as the Lagomarcino courtyard, the northeast corner of the library, the path between Atanasoff and Snedecor halls and the Lot 63 parking lot,” he said.

Burkhardt said he hopes action will be taken soon, but GSB will first have to do some work regarding funding.

“We will probably have some discussion about what areas GSB can fund, and what areas are the most crucial to students,” he said. “We are also going to need student input for that once we develop those plans.”

Burkhardt said he hopes everything will move quickly from now on.

“I hope the maintenance part is done as soon as possible, but as far as new lighting, I can’t say how soon that can be done because that depends on how soon Facilities can come up with the price estimates,” he said.

Burkhardt said he was satisfied with Thursday’s meeting.

“We had 17 students and nine administrators and staff participate in the survey. I was very pleased with the turnout and with the result,” he said. “However, I am always disappointed with the fact that there are so many lights out on campus, but I am pleased that GSB was helpful in identifying problematic areas.”

Cathy Brown, head campus planner for Facilities Planning and Management, said the department is already starting its role in making improvements.

“Typically what we would do is identify what is routine maintenance and repair work and issue work requests to our staff to proceed with maintenance, such as replacing light bulbs,” she said.

“Where it’s an area that requires additional improvement, we will probably develop a list of those areas and have a staff engineer review those areas, and they would make a recommendation for what would be an appropriate solution,” she said. “Then we would estimate that and prepare cost estimates.”

However, Brown said she was unsure exactly how long it would take to prepare the cost estimates.

“I would anticipate that it will take about 30 to 60 days,” she said.

Funding is a factor that must be examined, Brown said.

“After we prepare the cost estimate, priorities would be set and then requests for funding would be made. And that could come from various sources,” she said.

“We might be able to complete some portions of the campus during the summer if funding is available,” she said. “Other portions might take several years if funding is too difficult to procure.”

Brown said priorities are set regarding which areas need the most improvement.

“We … take into account the walkways that are more heavily used, and the walkways that lead up to buildings that are open at night,” she said. “Buildings that have activities in them that are scheduled at night would be a priority.”

Brown said work already has been started on areas that simply need maintenance work.

“We have already started to take care of light fixtures that are already out,” she said. “The difficulty is where we have improvements and have to install new light fixtures because we have to procure additional funding for that.”