CITY COUNCIL PICKS STREET LIGHTS FOR SPRUCED-UP RAILROAD AVENUE.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez / Daily News Staff Writer

The street lamps along Railroad Avenue will sit on decorative poles like suspended storm lanterns on an Old West street. And that's just what the City Council had in mind when it approved the redevelopment of downtown Newhall.

The street lights from Southern California Edison Co. are apparently what many cities choose for when trying to create an old-town area. The posts already adorn streets in Fillmore, Visalia, Palm Desert and Glendora - all because of downtown revitalization projects.

The Santa Clarita City Council chose the style this week for lights to be installed in about a year along the newly widened Railroad Avenue near the end of construction of a new Metrolink station.

The choice was easy, said Bonnie Joseph, an engineering technician for the city. The nostalgic design fits the theme for Newhall redevelopment better than standard fixtures or fancier colonial styles, she said.

Since Edison Co. sells the fixtures, the county's Street Light Maintenance District No. 1867 will be able to get parts on a long-term basis and maintain them, Joseph said.

``We looked at half a dozen or a dozen lights at Edison, and it was an easy choice,'' Joseph said. ``We wanted to try to get the aesthetic or the theme-type look we're going for. The other lights weren't very pretty.''

Although the lights are attractive, they're expensive, Joseph said. The light fixtures - with two separate lamps attached to one decorative post - cost $4,785 each, compared with typical street light fixtures at $1,132 each.

Fifty ornamental fixtures for Railroad Avenue will cost $239,250, plus $60,000 for installation, a city memo stated.

The city will seek money for the new fixtures from the Street Light Maintenance District, which collects taxes. As a backup, the council said the city could pay out of the Newhall Transportation Center project fund.

Groundbreaking for the city's third Metrolink station will take place in September. The station will be a key feature of the $7 million Newhall Transportation Center project, including a park-and-ride lot, a widened Railroad Avenue, landscaping and meandering sidewalks. That project is expected to complement redevelopment of downtown Newhall with an Old West-theme pedestrian shopping zone that could support outdoor restaurants, cafes and shops.

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PHOTO (color) Nostalgic-style street lights will be purchased for Railroad Avenue in Newhall.