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City explores modernizing aging emergency call boxes after reports of outages
Summary
Supervisor Peskin pressed city departments about widespread outages of the red street alarm boxes; Department of Technology said about 2,300 boxes exist with roughly 2,014 working (87%), noted copper infrastructure and parts shortages, and described a pilot for radio/cellular/solar modernization with a capital ask for 2018–19.
Supervisor Peskin opened a hearing after media reports that many of the city’s street alarm boxes were out of service. Linda Jarrell, director at the Department of Technology, apologized for public confusion and outlined the system’s history and technical limitations: the boxes date to the 1860s, operate over an aging copper‑cable network (about 200 miles underground and 150 miles overhead), and rely on…
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