The northbound traffic along Kino Parkway near I-10 on May 8 found many streetlights out, resulting from the theft of copper wire connecting the lights.

Dean knuth / arizona daily star

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Before the sun started rising earlier, Kirsten Lovette's daily commute to school and work was often dangerous.

Despite having a light on her bicycle, Lovette said, it often was difficult to see where she was going while riding up South Kino Boulevard between East Benson Highway and East Broadway.

That's because a good number of streetlights along Kino have been out for at least a month, Lovette said.

"Some of them have been out for a year or more," Lovette said. "If I only have my bike lights, I only have about 10 feet of visibility. If the streetlights were on, I'd be able to see much farther. It's easier to see when the lights are on."

Unfortunately for Lovette and for others concerned about darkened roads, there's no telling when those lights will be working again, said Michael Graham, Tucson Transportation Department spokesman.

If the outages had been caused by bad bulbs or a wiring malfunction, Graham said, they'd be fixed within the next three weeks.

But the lights on Kino are out because of copper-wire theft, a problem that Graham said has plagued the city for quite some time.

"In the past 21/2 years, we've had 50 miles' worth of copper wire stolen, at a cost of over a quarter million dollars to replace," Graham said.

Although Graham said some copper wire is being replaced, for the most part the city is holding off on repairs until it can figure out a way to prevent the new wiring from getting stolen as fast as it goes back in.

Graham said the city recently replaced some wire in streetlights near Rita Ranch, but within a week the new wire had been ripped out of the ground-level pull boxes where the lights' wiring is stored.

"I have 12 pages' worth of places in the city where copper (wire) lights have been stolen," Graham said.