Do you remember this photo from Maple Leaf resident Dan Mortensen from February?
Back then, we first noticed that the city had installed some of its new LED streetlights in the neighborhood, with the one pictured above at Northeast 96th Street, between 12th and 15th avenues northeast.
It appears that since then, the lights have spread, with reader Michael Meyers recently pointing out that Northeast 97th Street also recently had the new LED lights installed.
“Hey, how do you like all the new LED street lights going up?” he asked us, pointing out that he just noticed them on 97th a couple of weeks ago.
Have the new LED lights come to your block yet? Thumbs up or down?
Like!
@enduro, dan m.,
I watched as SCL did the replacements, and the lights AND lens assemblies were swapped. The reflectors in the new units are optimized for the lights. The uppermost external housing was unchanged, but all of the “guts” are new.
Love them! Think of how much safer us sidewalk-less pedestrians will be! Seriously, I’m happy with how well focused the light is on the street. Seems like much less light is being wasted, and I suspect that includes the atmosphere. Yes, our yards are a little darker, but then again it seems like it’s easier to discern objects in faint white over scattered orange. I suppose they feel “cold” but knowing that they’re more efficient, likely less polluting and safer more than makes up for that to me. And I’ll go out on a limb and guess that a color temperature that mimics the moon is better psychologically and/or phisiologically than one that resembles dusk on Mars! Our eyes evolved for that color at night.
Thanks to NickBob for posting the link to the City’s polling data; on that site is a link to a pdf consultant’s report evaluating different LED options and recommending the one that I assume was finally chosen, option A2.
Table 8-5 summarizes the costs and benefits associated with the change to LEDs, while direct photometric comparisons are in Tables 6-1 (simulation), 6-3 (South Park simulation), and 7-2 (South Park measured). Note that all other data showing other fixtures (other than A2) is irrelevant to what was finally chosen, which is apparently Vendor A’s fixture 2.
Table 7-2 shows the direct measured comparisons between the then-existing High Pressure Sodium lights and the replacement A2, with results brighter in the roadway and dimmer in the sidewalk areas (if I’m reading it correctly). Simulated measurements in the other tables showed comparable to slightly less brightness for the LEDs vs. HPS.
There are also a couple of pictures after table 7-2 (Figure 7-1) purporting to be a photographic comparison between the two types of lighting, but since they were taken using two different types of cameras and showing a different LED fixture than the one ultimately chosen, they seem irrelevant.
It was fun to read that report, thanks for providing the means to get it.
I wonder if the increased brightness shown in the actual measurements compared to the calculations is due to the much greater spill from one fixture to the next, so that two or more are reinforcing each other? Compared at least to the HPS.
Also, I walked down to the Post Office today, and 8th NE has LEDs all the way.
Also, EnduroDriver wrote:
“One thing we should keep in mind is that these are retrofit kits that put LED bulbs into a fixture that was not designed for them. New purpose built LED fixtures are designed from the ground up with the proper shape and lens to give a more pleasant experience. Some of the new fixture installations I’ve seen are really nice.”
Are you sure about this? The ones on 8th all were whole new heads, not retrofitted cobra-type. ALTHOUGH, I paused after typing that sentence and went outside to look at the one in front of my house, and it indeed appears to be a retro-fitted cobra type. So there you go.
Guess I’ll be walking down 8th tonight looking at streetlights….
LED is awesome! Check this groovy little calculator to see how they stack up against normal lighting and it becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly!
Check out this LED Energy Comparison Calculator
As a photographer, I think they look horrible compared to the orange glow of the existing lights.
But I took a through walk along Roosevelt up from 80th, and down a number of sidestreets and compared the visibility, and there’s no question the LEDs are brighter and make it much easier to see the street.
I think the only downside, besides subjective aesthetics, is that they do match the color or headlights a lot better, so while it used to be easy to see headlights from a car approaching around a corner from a sidestreet which looked very different on the pavement than the orange streetlights, it may be more difficult to see that with the new LED lights.
But from a perspective of seeing pedestrians and cyclists better, I think they’re great.
I’m curious if they also help with light pollution or not.
Everything old is new again, in a different way. The color is much closer to the white that was replaced by the amber in the 70’s IIRC. I prefer the amber, but expect it would lose out in a fair poll.
Speaking of polls, the city has polls on earlier efforts in other neighborhoods and much more on a LED page.
http://www.seattle.gov/light/streetlight/led/
This wiki on Light Pollution mentions that white light from LED may worsen light pollution in the night sky, which was one of the reasons cited years ago when the ambers replaced the prior whites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pollution
They look like prison yard lights. Or headlights, I was waiting for a cab Saturday night and kept looking out my window thinking it had arrived, but it was just the LED streetlights. For me I think the tone/color is a bit too harsh, I wish they’d gone with a softer yellower tone (which I know they have for smaller LEDs, not sure about floods). Love the energy saving and that they last way longer, I’m just not a fan of the color.
I love the color of the light, the brightness, and the increased coverage, but have concerns that LED-lit areas visible around corners resemble illumination from car headlights. I’ve needless stopped at a couple intersections and almost hit someone thinking their headlights were just street light glow. I think that will be fine after a while to adjust, so overall I’m in favor of the LED lights.
@Susan: Actually, 98th is covered all the way from 5th. We got them a few weeks ago. Big improvement in coverage of the street for us between 5th and 8th.
It’ll take a some getting used to for a lot of people, but it’s not like it’s bad light (for example, the cold HID headlights on higher-end cars are “bad” light in that they are much harder on the eyes of oncoming traffic). My street is nicely illuminated and it feels less like someone could be lurking in the shadows or something.
It is all the way up 98th from 12th to 35th. It is definitely brighter. I like them.
Yes, they seem to be up on pretty much all the cross streets now, plus 12th NE. Not yet on 15th or Roosevelt, which is interesting.
I’m looking forward to seeing the purpose-built enclosures; the ones we see everywhere are too much in my eyes when I’m off to the side of them, and the color is not as warm and inviting for my taste as the old style.
Still, you have to celebrate the energy savings and the expected life of them, as light is better than no light in most cases.
I’m curious what the actual measured light levels are; when I go from a side street to 15th or Roosevelt the absolute level seems brighter, although the fact that it’s less in your eyes makes it seem like it’s not. The color change confuses that issue, too. Maybe a City person could post the energy spectra of the different fixtures?
And thanks for the credit on the pic this second time running it, that was very generous.
Big thumbs-up on the LED lights. The energy savings are obviously a big plus, but our street was very, very dark before even with the old lights, and with the LEDs now somehow the whole street and the yards are more visible. You can actually make out faces of people walking by, which I think is very nice and compensates for the loss of warmth under the old orange lights.
@Enduro, I also agree on the energy and maintenance items. Yeah, sure I liked the orange glow of the past but I really appreciate the brightness for security reasons. On 97th we have the new fixtures. They’re pretty streamlined and are focused. I’m still getting used to the color but all in all I think it was a good move.
They actually seem to illuminate more of our street, so we think they’re doing a better job. As Andrea said above, they have a moonlight-like quality that seems a bit more natural (albeit colder), but more real than the orange lights we had before
I think what people struggle with is that the old light use to flood the entire area with light and everything glowed, with LEDs being so directional the just illuminate the street. I love them from an energy and maintenance cost perspective, their ok from and esthetics perspective. One thing we should keep in mind is that these are retrofit kits that put LED bulbs into a fixture that was not designed for them. New purpose built LED fixtures are designed from the ground up with the proper shape and lens to give a more pleasant experience. Some of the new fixture installations I’ve seen are really nice.
For some not having the light bleed over into their windows is nice, on the flipside my yard is quite dark now and from a security perspective I’ll need to add some lighting, I’ll probably give some LED lighting a try as well.
We got them on 91st a couple months ago. They’re great. They’re much more directional–the light the road but don’t glare into my windoes and the natural light color is so much better than the old HID lamps.
Hate ’em!!! Too bright, too cold, almost inhuman quality of lighting. I really think they’re awful.
they’ve been up around 17th Ave and 88th Street for several weeks now. At first I kept thinking the one to the east of my house was the moon, but generally I like them. the orange colored light has always bugged me a little.
The new lights have come to 92nd st.
I like them. Certainly a brighter and more clear light, which is good. But more than that, I like knowing the LED lights represent a non-trivial improvement in energy usage.