Jefferson City installed new solar-powered lights at the new crosswalk by the Harry S Truman Building earlier this week for safety and energy efficiency.
The crosswalk lights are on West McCarty Street, between Missouri Boulevard and Broadway Street.
Recently, the city's Public Works Department did an overlay on McCarty Street. Department Director Matt Morasch said the crosswalk originally was farther up the road, and he saw the opportunity to improve the area so the crosswalk would function more efficiently.
Along with moving the crosswalk, the Public Works Department installed solar-powered crosswalk lights earlier this week, which Morasch said is a first.
"We thought it would function a lot better and have a better compliance for cars stopping at the crosswalk for pedestrians," he said. "It's in an area where we've actually have had a pedestrian hit there in the past. We didn't have good compliance with cars stopping, so we wanted to improve upon that by sliding it down and adding extra lights to it, and we think we'll have a lot better compliance to it."
If these lights prove to be cost-effective, Morasch said, the department might install more of them around the city.