In January 2009, then- County Engineer Shae Kosmalski introduced a plan to the Cook County commissioners to use federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding to install streetlights at a number of intersections throughout Cook County. The plan was to erect city-like lighting at six locations—four along Highway 61 where it intersects with the Cramer Road in Schroeder, the Sawbill Trail in Tofte, the Caribou Trail in Lutsen and at the western end of County Road 7. Another was to be placed on County Road 8 where it meets the Gunflint Trail and another was to brighten South Shore Drive along Devil’s Track Lake.
I wasn’t very happy about the proposal. However, it was one of those things that came before the commissioners urgently because a funding deadline was near and it was passed by a four-to-one vote, with Commissioner Jan Hall casting the lone nay vote. I didn’t have a chance to write about it in Unorganized Territory
until after it was a done deal.
I dreaded the day that the streetlights would appear. I thought it wouldn’t be too bad on the Cramer Road—there are already lights nearby in the wayside rest parking area. The battle to block those streetlights from being installed was lost long ago, much to the neighboring property owner’s dismay.
The proposed lights at the bottom of the Sawbill and the Caribou likewise wouldn’t be too bad. There are several businesses at the foot of the Sawbill with lighting already and the Caribou has lighting at the Lutsen Fire Hall near the highway.
I’ll admit I didn’t really know if streetlights were needed on County Road 8 or South Shore Drive. I don’t drive those roads at night very often. But I guessed that the folks who live on those roads were quite used to driving without urban illumination.
But the idea of a streetlight at the intersection of County Road 7 and Highway 61 bothered me. It still does.
I make that turn frequently because I live on County Road 7 and if I’m heading home from the west end of the county that’s my normal route. I don’t see why a streetlight is necessary.
That stretch of Highway 61 was reconstructed within the last decade, so there is a turn lane and nice wide shoulders. There is more than enough room for cars to maneuver and make the turn, day or night. And if a motorist can’t see another car approaching with its headlights on, I don’t see how a streetlight is going to make a difference.
But most importantly, I don’t want to see the precedent of streetlights along our rural roads. If a streetlight is installed at an intersection, it could lead to another and another because citified drivers would be nervous about traveling out of the light.
I don’t want to see a strand of streetlights along County Road 7. I want to see the Big Dipper, the Milky Way, and occasionally the Northern Lights.
So I was happy that the illumination of our intersections never came about. The idea seemed to have been dropped and the streetlights never appeared. And at the May 11 county board meeting, commissioners didn’t push for the project to be completed. I was cheered to hear that Commissioner Jim Johnson said he “wouldn’t feel bad if we backtracked on it,” citing comments from constituents who prefer darkness at those locations.
I’m with them. If you feel the same, talk to your commissioner. Let him or her know you want to see the night sky, not night lights.
Civilization has fallen out of
touch with night. With lights,
we drive the holiness and the
beauty of night back to the
forests and the seas; the little
villages, the crossroads even,
will have none of it. Are modern
folk, perhaps, afraid of the
night? Do they fear the vast
serenity, the mystery of infinite
space, the austerity of stars?
Henry Beston
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