Was your neighborhood ruined by new LED streetlamps?

These are the lamps that they're installing in my neighborhood:

They have 2 rows of 10 high powered LED's with no lens or filter.

You know when your flashlight instructions tell you not to look into the emitter? This is like looking into 20 of them.

If you visit my neighborhood at night you will be greeted by streetlight after streetlight of blinding LED's. Try to keep your eyes on the road and not on the piercing lights that are overhead. In the distance you can see the same lamps on the side of Mt. Chill. They're REALLY bright.

Streetlamps should be visible for a few hundred feet, not many miles.

What am I going to do?

Haha drive around with shades on at night like cool kids xD

but really I think it's cool I wish they would do that in my neighborhood arc bulbs are always going bad and there aren't many street lights -.-

Not a neighborhood, but a small town I mentioned awhile back:

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?379142-Horrible-Street-Lighting-Mio-MI

My neighborhood doesn't have street lights and I hope it stays that way. Nice and peaceful; already enough light from all the neighbors houselights anyway. And when living in my parents neighborhood for 20+ years, I've seen all kinds of theft and vandalism, so that argument doesn't hold up for me.

Wow a whole town how long did it take for them to do that? My neighborhood is black at night even with house lights there are dense trees all around. It's wicked sweet for seeing stars I guess and works great for anyone who collects lights.

Are the street lights warm/cool/neutral?

greenlight said:

These are the lamps that they're installing in my neighborhood:

They have 2 rows of 10 high powered LED's with no lens or filter.

You know when your flashlight instructions tell you not to look into the emitter? This is like looking into 20 of them.

If you visit my neighborhood at night you will be greeted by streetlight after streetlight of blinding LED's. Try to keep your eyes on the road and not on the piercing lights that are overhead. In the distance you can see the same lamps on the side of Mt. Chill. They're REALLY bright.

Streetlamps should be visible for a few hundred feet, not many miles.

What am I going to do?

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Heck, I'd love to have street lights on my street. You've got to know somebody or beg at an interminable town meeting. I'd take led, gas lights, candles, anything thqt lights up!

R.W.D. said:

Wow a whole town how long did it take for them to do that?

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It isn't a total conversion, yet. We still have the orange HPS lights, too.

Are the street lights warm/cool/neutral?

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I would say that the tint is cool. I'm not against LED streetlamps, but the bare emitters are a total pain.

Yea I get that I wouldn't like bare emitters either.. Seems like it would be a distraction hazard or at the least screw up your night adapted vision. I'm not a fan of cool white I'm a neutral person I guess.

From your pictures, it looks like they are using Leotek GreenCobra fixtures. One of the members of a street light forum I also frequent has the same type (GC-20F) in his neighborhood in Colton.

The emitters are not bare, there is actually a small lens/optic in front of each of them. If you can give me the number on the wattage label (should be on the bottom of the ballast door), I could look up what current they are driving the LEDs at.


Caltrans is actively installing a lot of these Green Cobra fixtures on many of the freeways in my area. The ones on the freeways have 80+ LEDs in them but they don't seem to be too glary to me compared to the older Ruud BetaLEDs that were previously trialed. The Green Cobras used by Caltrans have a more diffused, warm white color compared to the intense blue-white that the BetaLEDs had.


If you or anyone else is interested, feel free to check out Gallery of Lights.
http://www.galleryoflights.org/mb/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=445

For some reason we have 1 LED on this street. Maybe there are waiting for the old lights to die before replacing with LEDs. I couldn't get a closeup of the LED because was just a wash of white but it isn't just 2 rows of leds but a mass array of them filling the whole fixture. It has a much higher light output and lights up more of the road like daylight. They should be everywhere on the streets. :thumbsup:

why not use warmest white(yellow orange) led? i think cool white is glary and contributes more to light pollution

breinrules said:

why not use warmest white(yellow orange) led? i think cool white is glary and contributes more to light pollution

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Because it is 'trendy' to attempt to make night look like day.

breinrules said:

why not use warmest white(yellow orange) led? i think cool white is glary and contributes more to light pollution

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Because those street bug lights are old fashioned and ugly. Incidentally there were no bugs flying are the led despite being next to a wooded area/marsh. Also why should we have yellow orange street lights when our cars have cool (4300-6000k) Xenon HID, makes no sense.

MichaelW said:

Because it is 'trendy' to attempt to make night look like day.

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then i guess they are not called night lights anymore?

Remington597 said:

Because those street bug lights are old fashioned and ugly. Incidentally there were no bugs flying are the led despite being next to a wooded area/marsh. Also why should we have yellow orange street lights when our cars have cool (4300-6000k) Xenon HID, makes no sense.

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i am refering to leds, what i am implying is that why should we use cool white leds since it is glary at night.

I really hate HID since it tends to blind people in front of you. If HID is just as bright as an incan, im sure no one will be buying them.

Nighttime is normal on much of the earth. Not sure why we have to light it up SO much. A little light goes a long way. I don't see the need to make it daytime either. How about a nice neutral tint instead of that blue laboratory like in the pictures above? I guess if the hospital emergency room decides to move to the curbside it would be OK. Or maybe Intel wants to make microchips on the sidewalk.

markr6 said:

Nighttime is normal on much of the earth. Not sure why we have to light it up SO much. A little light goes a long way. I don't see the need to make it daytime either. How about a nice neutral tint instead of that blue laboratory like in the pictures above? I guess if the hospital emergency room decides to move to the curbside it would be OK. Or maybe Intel wants to make microchips on the sidewalk.

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you have a point there. those bluish led also contribute to light pollution.

I don't think I'd like those lights at night either. Hopefully when I move in a few years I can find a place without too much light pollution. I guess in some areas it's necessary to have some light, but it seems like overkill in many places and uses up a lot of energy in aggregate.

Best thing our council has done in years,really looking forward to them spending lots more money putting them in more areas in my area.

Heck, my neighborhood still has mercury vapor streetlights. At least they use the DX white (phosphor coated) bulbs that add red to white light so people don't look like walking cadavers.

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