Case Study: Elmer Goodwin Park Lighting Improvements

Elmer Goodwin Park in Southport, New York, is a good example of what a straightforward lighting upgrade can do for a small-town park once the sun goes down. Like a lot of municipal parks, it had a well-used trail and gathering areas that simply went dark at night, quietly limiting how much use the town's investment in the space actually got. The town needed to light those trails and gathering areas without taking on a costly grid-tied electrical project, and the results after installation say a lot about why solar has become the default choice for park lighting in towns operating on a tight capital budget.

The Challenge

Southport's parks department wanted Elmer Goodwin Park to stay usable into the evening — for walkers, for families, for the kind of casual after-dinner park visit that just doesn't happen in the dark. Running conventional electrical service to light the park's trail and open areas would have meant trenching across parkland and tying into the grid at real expense, with no guarantee the town's budget could absorb the ongoing electricity cost afterward. For a town-owned park competing with plenty of other line items for capital budget dollars, that upfront and ongoing cost was enough to keep the project on the shelf until solar changed the math.

The Solar Lighting Solution

Greenshine installed 22 Brighta 30W solar lighting systems throughout the park, positioned along the trail and near the areas residents use most. As self-contained, off-grid fixtures, each system charges during the day and runs independently overnight, which meant the town avoided both the trenching cost of a grid connection and the monthly electric bill that would have followed it. The town estimated the solar approach saved roughly $100,000 compared to installing traditional grid-connected lighting.

Results and Impact

• ✓Community celebration — residents marked the completed installation with a fireworks display, a sign of how much the upgrade meant to the neighborhood
• ✓Resident feedback — park visitors described the lights as bringing "new life" to the park and said the space felt safer and more enjoyable to use at night
• ✓Extended park hours — the added lighting let residents use the park later into the evening without a safety trade-off
• ✓Minor follow-up adjustments — the town trimmed back tree growth along parts of the trail to eliminate a few dark spots the original canopy had created

Why It Matters

Elmer Goodwin Park is a small park, but the $100,000 in avoided costs and the immediate jump in evening foot traffic are exactly the outcomes towns with limited capital budgets are looking for. Solar lighting let Southport upgrade a beloved public space without a multi-year electrical project or a new recurring utility bill — and gave the town a visible, well-lit park its residents actually wanted to spend evenings in.