Non-residential lighting - opinions?

I'm wondering what people think about non-residential lighting? Particularly street lights but anything outside the home.

I'm missing the old sodium street lights, yes the colour was horrible and they use twice as much power but the glare of the new LEDs seems worse.

This looks really interesting. https://www.darksky.org/

As a serious amateur astronomer, I take sky glow as serious form of pollution.  Like so many forms of pollution, often the solution costs less than the cause.  In the case of street lights, too often the skies are being lit up almost as much as the ground. A simple reflector would put more light on the ground and less in the skies.

Why do we waste money and energy putting street lights at all?  Back in the day of horse drawn carriages, sure. But now that all vehicles have blinding bright headlights? Maybe parking lots and pedestrian areas, but a highway with no sidewalks and no bikes allowed? Went down a road the other day so bright automatic headlights were shutting OFF.

The brightness of headlights nowadays is another matter entirely. If you're not in an SUV, be prepared to be blinded. Modern cars optimise the headlamp aperture so standard bulbs are more than sufficient, and then wannabe modders go get the brightest after-market bulbs to put in there. Save your money for iridium plugs or something. It gets to be that I spend most of my time with my rearview mirror switched to it's secondary position, to reflect the glare.

Not cool.

And yes, reflectors, 100%. I have seen some rather interesting, aesthetically-pleasing ones that worked really well, and the only light bouncing into the sky had hit a reflector and bounced off of the ground and surroundings first. I think lit public spaces need to also be designed to bounce light around rather than to just direct it upwards after one bounce, as well as handle sound better. Acoustic, light-reflecting panels, anyone?

-CK

When we were looking to buy a place we walked away from one which ticked all the boxes, but it had street lights. I hate them I want night to be night, not a constant twilight that has to be kept out of the house with blackout curtains. They can be nice at difficult junctions or roundabouts and certainly have a place in road safety, but they are completely overused. A few years back some councils in the UK started switching them off in the small hours of the morning to save money, I don't know if it had any affect on accidents or theft but it might be interesting to see if anyone did any research.

Thankfully I live in an area of a district where there are only lights (often just 1) at more major intersections. We can actually see the Milky Way in all its glory! There is a small, very old, observatory south of us by a fair way, but it set the tone for the area.

More recently, they have started installing lighted crosswalks in places, but these are solar powered, button activated, so I'm willing to support that to keep people safer.

There was also a walkway parallel to the highway where there was some controversy about lighting. It appears the solution was well covered to reflect the light down, and they appear to be motion activated also, so that a person walking towards one light will trigger several in the row away to come of for a set period of time - we've got the technology, why not use it! It would bug me if they weren't shaded and were coming on and off in the middle of the night, but these would be less of a problem than car lights on the highway.

Hi Jay,

To add to your observations, I find it interesting that the police say that the lighting helps them with their patrols.  It probably does.  When I first got out of school, I worked in corrections.   Well guess who loved outdoor lighting because it made it easier to case neighborhoods and houses? It also creates some great shadows.

John F Dean wrote: When I first got out of school, I worked in corrections.   Well guess who loved outdoor lighting because it made it easier to case neighborhoods and houses? It also creates some great shadows.

Exactly! Motion sensor lights at least tell you something's moving, but too many of those seem to be set to blind a person walking up a driveway (the house we bought for example), and annoy people trying to sleep. The one sensor light we use outside is on a timer to shut off after 11 pm. We figure anyone out after that should be smart enough to carry a flashlight!

I consider light pollution one of the most serious unspoken health risks facing us today. There is some evidence that as LED light use has increased because of cheaper operating costs, sky glow is increasing as much as 2% per year!! Skyglow and poor sleep quality/poor circadian rhythms are closely linked, and poor sleep is associated with a whole host of health issues.

The neighbourhood I used to live in was so bright at night I could see some colours if I walked in the evening. I couldn't sleep without thick blackout curtains on top of blinds- and then didn't wake up properly, because there was no morning sun. Even in my dad's very remote house, approx 10 km from the nearest town, and 100 + km from the nearest city, I have started to see faint sky glow on the horizon in recent years.

Yes - reflectors should be mandatory on all residential and commercial outdoor lights, and there should be a maximum brightness level allowed. I often struggle with parking lot lights, house lights, etc. They leave long shadows, and make it easier for things to hide in the dark. I trip less at night in an unlit, cloudy night than in a semi lit area.

After visiting the high arctic, staring up at the crystal clear, almost pollution and sky glow free, radiant night sky, I truly think people do not know what they are missing. There is nothing like sitting for a while in true dark to make you sleep well at night.

LED truck and SUV lights... I want to ban them, too, they are terrifying. Driving a car on a windy dark road, I just pray I am on the pavement because I can't see with oncoming traffic. I have to move my rearview mirror to point upwards, and flick my sideview mirrors to point away from the vehicle if someone drives behind me. I wonder how many accidents happen a year because of night blindness from LEDs? I certainly couldn't see a deer if it jumped in front of me while some idiot in a fancy pickup truck is tailgating me for several km before the next available passing lane...

Catie George wrote:

I couldn't sleep without thick blackout curtains on top of blinds- and then didn't wake up properly, because there was no morning sun.

When I lived in a city and needed black-out curtains, I had a very small lamp on a timer which came on 1/2 an hour before my alarm to simulate morning coming. A friend bought a much more complex version where the light actually gradually came on brighter as her son needed to get up.

Light at night has been linked to breast cancer which is epidemic nowadays compared to 60 years ago.

What bugs me is that most of the light really isn't necessary. It confuses birds and insects - not just people!

I live in a very rural area with farms scattered all over the place a mile to a couple miles apart. It is almost an unspoken rule that every farm yard needs 2 to 4 'yard lights'. These are generally 800 watt halogen bulbs that light up a large area. Looking across the Prairie landscape at night you can pick out every yard within 20 miles.

I myself refuse to pay for that electricity that I derive little benefit from, my yard had 3 yard lights that came on at dark and shut off at sun up. Now I have 1 thats on a motion sensor and that is plenty for me.