LED street lights

[James Bond Agent 007]

I just discovered a few hours ago they put an LED light in the street light in front of my neighbor's house (which is on a corner). It used to be a yellow light, which was fine. This thing is waaay too bright. I checked the city of KC website and noticed they were installing them around a lot of the city. Then I went outside and noticed a couple other street lights on that street had been fitted with LED's. If they put it on the street light in front of my house I'll really be pissed off. They just replaced that light a year or so ago because it had burned out, but I presume it'll eventually get replaced as well.

The light from that street light is even bleeding into my backyard which, until tonight, was pretty dark. Which I liked. I'm somebody who really needs it to be dark in order to sleep well. So these lights just really suck.

Night should be dark. Am I the only one who hates these things?

[James Bond Agent 007]

And this:
https://www.treehugger.com/led-stree...l-risk-6666342

I can see the desire to save electricity, but why is it necessary for them to be so bright?

[photoLith]

I like the bright led street lights, possibly helps deter criminals. Get black out blinds.

[TempleGuy1000]

I was thinking about this the other week as more and more yellows disappear. I'm going to have nostalgia for the yellow-light city soon enough lol.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by TempleGuy1000

I was thinking about this the other week as more and more yellows disappear. I'm going to have nostalgia for the yellow-light city soon enough lol.

Everytime I find a block in Chicago that still.has the old orange sodium street lights I get all nostalgic, proving that people really can get nostalgic about anything.

The first LED street lights Chicago starting putting in a decade or so ago were WAY too cold, but the ones that are going in now, and that now cover most of the city, seem pretty good from a temp./color rendition perspective.

A part of me will always miss those old orange nights of my Chicago youth/young adulthood, but LEDs really are the way to go for so many reasons.

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by photoLith

I like the bright led street lights, possibly helps deter criminals. Get black out blinds.

Except that it's not clear they actually do reduce crime. Criminals need to see, too, and if it's brighter they can see better.

Lighting, Crime and Safety

There is no clear scientific evidence that increased outdoor lighting deters crimes. It may make us feel safer, but has not been shown to make us safer.

A 2015 study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that streetlights don’t prevent accidents or crime, but do cost a lot of money. The researchers looked at data on road traffic collisions and crime in 62 local authorities in England and Wales and found that lighting had no effect, whether authorities had turned them off completely, dimmed them, turned them off at certain hours, or substituted low-power LED lamps.

And even if they did reduce some crime, is a few less crimes worth depriving people of sleep, and disturbing the circadian rhythms of entire urban ecosystems (see my link in post #2)? I think not.

I'm very sensitive to light at night. Starting around 8:30-9pm I turn off all the lights in my house except for a few dimmer ones, because it helps me calm down for a couple hours before I go to bed. If I've got these bright lights streaming into my house all night it's going to make me very tense. As it is I already hate this time of year because the days are so long. This will make it worse.

I just pray that they don't replace the light in front of my house with one of these things. That will be just terrible.

[MAC123]

You live in a city, you're just gonna have to deal with the lights. It's not like they're gonna stop putting them in.

[pj3000]

LEDs don't have to be so bright white in color temperature. I don't know why cities continue to put 4700k-5000k LEDs outside.

The City of Pittsburgh adopted a Dark Skies ordinance, and all streetlights retrofitted with LED fixtures will be max 3300k. This makes sense.

I can't stand seeing empty parking lots and buildings illuminated with 5000k lights all night long.

And don't even get me started on idiot neighbors who put 5000k bulbs in their porchlights/lamp posts. And vape/smoke shops... what the hell is wrong with those people? Are those places required to be lit up like high-precision dental labs or something?

[cabasse]

some of the new streetlights i've seen going in around town here are downright blue, (more than 6000k?) which is absolutely terrible for melatonin. completely agree with pj3000 - no more than 3300k is what should be required everywhere.

[Obadno]

I've never liked LED lights they are cold and sterile they make you feel like you are in a Walmart or a hospital.

Ive stocked up on the bulbs I like as they continue to become harder and harder to find and I dont want to live in LED nightmare homes.

But I do like when the streetlights bug out and give the city a purple cyberpunk feel.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Obadno

I've never liked LED lights they are cold and sterile they make you feel like you are in a Walmart or a hospital.

Depends on the kind you get. The LED lights in my apartment are pretty close if not spot on with how "warm" they look, like incandescents. And they can be dimmed, unlike the CFLs. Are those even sold anymore? Those were awful.

Regarding the LED streetlights, they installed them on my street 2 or 3 years ago. I instantly liked them (South Pasadena is kind of late to the game). They did seem a bit bright at first, but I got used to them maybe after a week or so. I like that you see parked cars in their true color vs. what you saw with the pinkish-orangeish streetlights that used to be on my street.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Obadno

I've never liked LED lights they are cold and sterile they make you feel like you are in a Walmart or a hospital.

Ive stocked up on the bulbs I like as they continue to become harder and harder to find and I dont want to live in LED nightmare homes.

Why not just buy 2700k LED bulbs?

[pj3000]

Seeing that LEDs have been widespread on the consumer market for a decade now, I'm still kinda amazed that people seem to know so little about them.

You can get them in basically any fucking color temp you want. So, if you grab a 5000k off the shelf without taking 5 secs to look at the package, screw it into your living lamp and you don't like the stark, white light it gives off... well that's your own damn fault. Blame your own ignorance and not the technology.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Why not just buy 2700k LED bulbs?

Right?

Some people in this thread appear to be unaware of the advances in LED lighting over the past 10 years or so.

Yes, the first LED bulbs that became widely available on the market were way too cold, turning many people off to LED, but LED bulbs matching the temperature of the old beloved incandescent are now readily available anywhere.


Same thing happened with streetlights. When Chicago first started testing LED streetlights a decade or so ago, they were way too cold, like 5,000K, upsetting many people, but they're now using a standard 3,000K fixture that is also remotely dimmable for off-peak times/areas where the light is to bright.

[James Bond Agent 007]

I don't know kind of LED's Kansas City is using. The 2 pages on the project don't have any detailed info:

https://www.kcmo.gov/Home/Components/News/News/1558/625
https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/depar...s/streetlights

Just says they're LED's. But going out there last night, whatever they are, they're too bright and too white as far as I'm concerned.

The map says the light in front of my house is scheduled for replacement between Sept and Nov. Ugh! I don't know what I'm going to do, this is literally going to be bad for my health.

[pdxtex]

I work at the power company. Were installing LEDs all over. Lights are usually City owned but we might maintain them. Its just cost savings. LEDs are more efficient than sodium or mercury vapor. They are pretty harsh tho and seem too concentrated to me. The older lights see to more diffuse and cover more area. Seems better to me.

[photoLith]

Why don't you just get some blackout blinds? I have them in the bedroom and even when its sunny outside, if theyre down its pitch black in the room.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I don't know kind of LED's Kansas City is using. The 2 pages on the project don't have any detailed info:

https://www.kcmo.gov/Home/Components/News/News/1558/625
https://www.kcmo.gov/city-hall/depar...s/streetlights

Just says they're LED's. But going out there last night, whatever they are, they're too bright and too white as far as I'm concerned.

The map says the light in front of my house is scheduled for replacement between Sept and Nov. Ugh! I don't know what I'm going to do, this is literally going to be bad for my health.

I would contact your city councilperson and make it known that you don't want inappropriately-colored lights.

Like Steely mentions above with Chicago, cities that converted to LED years back... which were bright white (4700K +)... are now replacing them with a warmer color temperature LEDs.

Pittsburgh replaced around 4,000 of its old sodium vapor streetlights with bight-white 5000K LEDs a number of years ago... and then realized the error of its ways.

Now, it will replace ALL of its streetlights with 3000K LEDs.

Hopefully, Kansas City will learn from mistakes other cities (including themselves it sounds like) have made, and will not waste money on bright-white lights that they'll only end up replacing, while irritating the hell out of its citizens in the meantime.

Some resources:

https://www.designlights.org/our-work/luna/

https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/

https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lig...ng-ordinances/

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by photoLith

Why don't you just get some blackout blinds? I have them in the bedroom and even when its sunny outside, if theyre down its pitch black in the room.

How about we address the problem and rectify stupidity, instead of forcing ourselves to live like vampires?

[James Bond Agent 007]

Originally Posted by photoLith

Why don't you just get some blackout blinds? I have them in the bedroom and even when its sunny outside, if theyre down its pitch black in the room.

I was already thinking along those lines. I have good blinds on most of my windows, but even last night I could tell the light peeking through the blind in my window was a bit brighter. I'm just about to go out and see what curtains I can find to also put over my bedroom windows.

But it's not just that, it's all the light coming in through all the house. I would need to close all the blinds and curtains in my house when I also turn off most of my lights at 8:30-9 in order to get it dark after they put the new light in the streetlight in front of my house. Which is ridiculous.

I do have a finished basement that has a spare bedroom I sleep in during the summer a lot, and that's where I ended up sleeping last night. But it gets cold down there in the winter and won't be an option then. Plus, during winter the leaves are off the trees which lets in even more light. This will be particularly true of the light in front of my house.