Silicon Valley leaders are filling utility boxes with sand, running undercover stings and devoting entire municipal teams to repairing copper wire as rising thefts wreak street light outages and thousands of dollars in property damage.
Those were the insights of a Nov. 12 panel hosted by San José Spotlight, which heard from broadband, business, transportation and law enforcement experts on a problem plaguing street lights, traffic signals and VTA light rail stations. The infrastructure disruptions can mean service delays and less-visible neighborhoods.
It warrants a special focus on San Jose’s 65,000 streetlights and approximately 940 traffic signals, according to Rick Scott, assistant director of San Jose’s Department of Transportation. He’s been with the department for 13 years, but said June 2024 is when thefts began to skyrocket…