That cool white glow in tonight’s sky? No, not the moon.
It’s the city’s new LED streetlights – not dissimilar to the icy white LED Christmas lights that predominated in stores this holiday season, but bigger.
“Here are some pics of what may be the first of the coming LED streetlights to be installed in Maple Leaf. There may be others, but I haven’t seen any on my nightly walks. This one is on N.E. 96th between 12th and 15th,” writes reader Dan Mortensen.
Dan included p
hotos of the old high-pressure sodium lights for comparison. Seattle has some 84,000 streetlights that are slowly being converted to the new, energy-efficient light-emitting diode style.
As you can see by the pictures, which are reasonably close to the right colors, the light is
cooler than the high-pressure sodium lamps (on either side of the LED one in the first picture); “like moonlight” might be a charitable way to describe it.
The city’s schedule for conversation is shown on the map below.
The moon? It’s up there, waxing. First quarter in two days.
Well, it looks a lot like the old flourescent lights that used to be in my neighborhood back East… and if it uses less elecrticity, I’m all for it. I don’t think the lights are too bright, and they don’t interfere with my vision/sleep at all. If they are in fact too bright, lower-wattage models could be used for, say, residential streets.
AA – you should be able to get them to install a shield on the light so it doesn’t shine onto your property or in the windows.
Blue-shifted light (ie, from the LED replacement streetlights) has been shown to interfere with normal sleep. I have tried since November to get a sodium vapor 250 watt light to replace the LED with no response from SCL. Meanwhile they leave sodium vapor on the arterial streets. I’m frustrated – no-one asked me if I wanted this. I look for alternatives and SCL ignores. They do what they want, damn the customer, and it’s disheartening.
The sodium are what they use where I live, the problem with them is that they put off a yellow color, which from a distance is close to the same shade of yellow used in stop lights….. from a distance with angles, you cant tell the difference at all and people blow through yellow lights at dusk and after dark more I think then if the lights were white in color…. well that and the MMJ crowd can tell you that even a single 1000w halide or sodium vapor light can run upwards of $100 a month extra on a power bill…. led’s are pennys
I can appreciate the longevity and energy savings of the new fixtures, but the wavelength is not right. Not as bad as the mercury vapor bulbs, but not as good as the sodium.
There have been studies done on the wavelengths of lighting. Do not have url’s for them, but can give you a synopsis;
Sodiums exhibit a more red wavelength, similar to the afternoon and evening sun. This is why humans respond to them ‘warmly’.
Bright white LED’s, mercury vapor, and standard halide lights emit more blue spectrum light. Similar to the morning sun.
For us humans, blue spectrum at night can cause a bit of disconnect, as we are wired for more of a gentle red shift at night. Think of the calming that fire light can give.
Having written all of that, I am happy that we have street lights in our neighborhoods. It gets very dark in the winter!
I heard about these street lights over a year ago and dreaded ever getting them in our neighborhood. Last Autumn, they replaced all the lights on our block of 60th NW and several around us. I really hate LEDs. They make my eyes ache. They are so bright, they kill my night vision and make the contrast of the shadows really intense. I feel much less safe when I’m biking at night. I wish there was some to get rid of them.
Even more good news, we’ll get about 10.25 good years per street light. Not bad.
Chart:
http://led-street-lights.info/wp-content/uploads/LED-Street-Light-Life-Span.jpg
Seattle on line Street light trouble reporting:
http://www.seattle.gov/light/streetlight/form.asp
Some people choose to walk, and don’t have headlights mounted on their chest. Hence the provision for ample street lighting.
84,000?!? could we replace one quarter to a third with LED’s and just shut the rest off. Criminy, you don’t even need headlights on your car to drive around Seattle at night.
Uh oh, I read that there might be more normal looking LED warm lights in a year or two. So Zone 2 and the southern part of zone 3 are safe from the awful cold lighting. Hmmm, unfortunate for us!
We don’t have the lights on our street, YET, but this holiday season, I changed out our xmas LED cool lights for the LED warm lights. The warm LED are much nicer and easier on the eyes.
Have to wonder if the city bought up a bunch of the cool lights and need to install them, and guess what, we get them in North Seattle, yeah!