STARKVILLE — Hagan Walker can remember walking the bridge along University Drive near downtown many times as a Mississippi State University student.
The bridge, until recently, has been one of the darkest spots along the route. Now, thanks to a collaborative effort from Walker and the city, that’s changed.
A strip of LED lights, about 200 feet long, now lines the side of the bridge. Walker, who is a co-founder of Glo in Starkville, reached out to Mayor Lynn Spruill about the idea, who gave it her blessing and the project moved from there.
“I had no idea what she was going to say but I didn’t expect she’d embrace it as quickly as she did,” he said. “She just told me to run with it.”
Walker said the city provided power for the lights, and he ran them across the bridge and drilled into the concrete to keep them in place. He said the project cost him about $1,500.
The LED lights are individually addressable, which means each individual light on the strip can be controlled individually. That gives the strip the flexibility to, for example, have one light of a certain color in the middle of the strip, or any other number of options.
The strip is active from dusk to dawn, and Walker said sensors activate when pedestrians pass by.
“There are two sensors on either end,” he said. “It’s programmed to take a random value and do something funky with that so each time you walk by, it should be a little bit different.
“They start with some sort of cool pattern, kind of like an LED light show type thing for the first few seconds,” Walker added. “After that, they fade into a white light so you can get across the bridge safely. Once you get across the other end of the bridge, they fade back off.”
Spruill said the LED light bridge is, in the grand scheme, a small project. However, she said small projects add up and, especially as the city works to enhance the corridor from Main Street to the university, help to create a sense of place.
“Anything that makes our community a place where people want to be — bright little spots from murals to street pianos to lights — all of those things make a difference in how you feel about your community,” Spruill said.
“Sometimes they’re big, sometimes they’re small, but those small things add up and create a sense of who you are and where you are and make it place where you want to be, you want to stay, you want to have your home and children,” she added. “That’s what we’re going for. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Walker said the reception has, so far, been positive. He said MSU has even approached him to ask about the project with a possible interest in replicating it on campus.
“I was honestly kind of worried about that,” Walker said, “We’re an old town. Some people like change and some people don’t. I was really scared that we were gonna get some complaints, but so far everything’s been really positive.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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