Seattle's new LED-lit streets: Blinded by the lights
Our new streetlights save money and energy, help police and give Seattle early-adopter bragging rights. But do they have to be so glaring?
Eric Scigliano
Eric Scigliano
This is a good news-bad news-good news story. The first good news: Seattle is leading the nation into a bright new future of energy-efficient, cost-saving LED street lighting; a future limned with truer colors, better visibility and, maybe, safer streets. The bad news: despite extensive, much-touted prior testing, the city has been installing these new streetlights in crude one-size-fits-all fashion, with little regard to Seattle’s hilly terrain and bombarding many residents, outside and sometimes inside their homes, with intrusive, blinding glare. The other good news: It can and will correct these problems — if you call to complain.
Seattle is with Los Angeles as a pioneer on the road to LED streetlights, which it began trying out clear back in 2007. Its efforts hit overdrive in 2009 when the Nickels administration secured a stimulus grant to start converting about 41,000 lights on residential streets to LEDs. Mayor McGinn upped the ante last June when he and LA’s Antonio Villaraigosa introduced a measure adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors urging that every city switch to LED streetlights — presumably with suitable federal funding. Edward Smalley, Seattle City Light’s chief streetlight engineer and a longtime LED booster, is the director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Municipal Solid State Street Lighting Consortium — the point man for LED conversion nationwide.
The advantages of the new technology are manifold. LED displays use as little as 40 percent of the electricity that high-pressure sodium bulbs, the old standard, use to produce as much light. Though they cost more upfront, they last about three times as long, which saves labor replacing them and disposal costs. They don’t get jiggled to an early demise by vibration, as bulbs do, making them especially well-suited to bridges and other bouncy sites. City Light expects to recover the capital cost of converting in 7.7 years; it originally expected to save $2.2 million a year in energy and labor, but now hopes to save $3 million.
LEDs can deliver not only cheaper and more durable, but better quality and more versatile lighting. High-pressure sodium bulbs, with their pale-orange glow, operate at the warm end of the light spectrum, about 2,100 kelvins; incandescent and “soft white” fluorescent bulbs emit about 3,000 kelvins, and office fluorescents 3,500. (Cooler light is thought to be stimulating — bad for sleep, but good for work.) LEDs can be made with your color temperature of choice; the cooler the temperature (i.e., the bluer the light), the less energy they consume.
Seattle considered an icy 6,000 kelvins but opted for a merely chilly 5,000, the temperature of moonlight.
Many people find this cool light unsettling, at least at first, but it also makes for truer colors. Police like LEDs because they help witnesses accurately report whether a suspect drove a blue or green car or wore a black or brown hoody. Politicians like any excuse to proclaim that they’ve made the streets lighter, brighter and safer. Street lighting is like long, determinate prison sentences: More is always presumed to be better, and no politician ever lost an election calling for it.
But for many residents living under them, the new lights are a mixed bag. For some, they’re a nightmare. When the new lights arrived in Wallingford in late 2011 (the city installed them north of the Ship Canal first, and then started working up through the South End), the Wallyhood blog lit up with comments, from “a bit better than the yellowy light we used to have” to “HATE the color…HATE the sharp glare…HATE that it makes everything under it look cold and blue.”
For many the shock of the blue fades with familiarity. “I don’t hate them so much as I did at first,” says software engineer and light-pollution watchdog Bruce Weertman. “I actually like the white — it’s more natural.” The bigger problem, for Weertman, the Wallyhood bloggers, and your correspondent, is the new lights’ blinding glare and surprisingly intrusive reach.
“We can’t sit comfortably and read in our living room without the curtains drawn,” one Wallyhooder noted after the LEDs arrived. Worse yet, I could sit and read in my living room with the curtains open — by the glow of the streetlights. The streets outside (we’re on a corner lot) were lit up like a prison yard, and suspended mini-novas pierced the eye with glare when you stepped out to the sidewalk.
It’s not supposed to be that way. Another argument for LEDs is that they can be precisely targeted where light’s needed, rather than scattering and trespassing where it’s not. But these good intentions sometimes collide with the shakeout state of the industry (the technology’s always improving, and the city keeps seeking better makes), the nature of the technology and the hills and dales of a city like Seattle.
Rather than a single bulb, whose emission is reflected and directed by the backing fixture, an LED fixture has 120 little diodes —“like an array of small spotlights,” in the words of Ballard-based lighting engineer Dan Salinas — variously pointed to cast what’s supposed to be a composite block of even light.
From some angles the results are amazing: You can stand bathed in light and look straight up into one of the new streetlights without blinking. From others, they’re excruciating: Step back and that same fixture will glare like a headlight. (See photos.) “That’s because the peripheral lights are directed horizontally,” explains engineer and lighting maven Terrence McCosh, “and LED optics defeat the inverse square law” — which holds that the intensity of a property (in this case light) is inversely proportional to distance from its source.
Steep slopes complicate the angles and compound the effect. An LED fixture a block or two up a hill can glare brighter than one across the street.
Seattle City Light is swapping out the city's traditional streetlights lumen-for-lumen — replacing the old lights with LEDS rated at the same output. City Light spokesman Scott Thomsen says that’s at the direction of the Transportation Department and City Council, and in keeping with national standards for street lighting. But it’s also deceptive. “You really can’t judge lighting by its output,” says Salinas, who sits on the board of the national Illumination Engineering Society, the leading professional group. “You can’t say this amount of LED is going to replace this amount of high-pressure sodium. You have to consider the total system — do a photometric calculation so you can see how the light is distributed.”
Because their output isn’t lost to back-glow and dispersion, LEDs are effectively brighter than nominally equilavent traditional lights. City Light Thomsen acknowledges that there’s an emerging view in the field that “because of the higher quality of light [with LEDS], you can reduce lumen output,” and that the city may look at doing so in the future.
Right now, however, it’s switching the lights over lumen-for-lumen — effectively upsizing Seattle’s residential street lighting. They then tinker individual lights — reducing output or adding glare shield when residents complain and city engineers confirm a problem. “That’s not necessarily the best way, not the way I would do it,” says Salinas. “But they think it’s more efficient.”
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Comments:
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 6:47 a.m. Inappropriate
These are the same arguments used when streetlights were switched from Mercury Vapor to High Pressure Sodium. I would suspect that when incandescent lamps were switched to Mercury Vapor the same arguments were used also. My grandparent used to laugh about the complaints when their neighbors got electric lights vs. kerosene lamps.
In a short time, nobody will notice. Personally, I like them, the brighter the better. I hate working in the dark.
pywhatM
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 8:16 a.m. Inappropriate
I really want to thank the writer for this article and for the information about where to complain. Two lights on my street, one very near my front window, are so bright, glaring, and cold that I feel like I'm in one of those noir movies where a suspect is hit with glaring light in a dark room to intimidate him. The lights are so bright that I could easily read in my living room without any other light. I feel shivery seeing those lights in the evening. I'm so glad to know I may be able to get the intrusion ameliorated. Thanks!
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 8:32 a.m. Inappropriate
The article makes no mention of one of the biggest downsides of LED lights, the godawful flicker. Certainly anyone who's seen LED Christmas lights or early LED auto taillights knows what I mean. It's evident when one moves one's eyes around in their presence and is met with a sea of strobing points of light. I'm not the only one I know who has had migraine attacks induced by interior LED lighting. And unless they are fluorescent LEDs, they don't emit white light at all, but a combination of red, green and blue light, in very narrow bands, that the eye interprets as white but is in fact the equivalent of being immersed in a television image, not natural at all. Unless these issues are addressed, this will be just one more reason to stay out of Seattle, especially at night.
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 11:54 a.m. Inappropriate
Maybe cheap LED Christmas lights create a flicker, but I see no evidence of this with the streetlights.
I have had them on my Ballard street for a few years and love them.
Would someone really stay out of a city at night because they do not like the streetlights?
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 9:34 a.m. Inappropriate
Meanwhile, there are no lights, sodium, LED, or otherwise, on my new block. I've lived in three other Seattle neighborhoods and always had a street light close to my house. Granted, the last two places were on arterials, but the house where I grew up wasn't.
On the one hand, it's kind of nice. On the other hand, now I see why people install outdoor lighting. There's a first time for everything...
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 12:45 p.m. Inappropriate
I find this interesting. As someone who believes that nighttime should be dark, I've never had a complaint of too little light. I have a new neighbor two houses down who has a row of "mushroom" lights running down his driveway which he leaves on all night. Not the little Malibu Lighting kind, but bright ones. Bright enough to cast shadows in my bedroom 200 feet away. Drives me nuts. When he first moved in, he left town with all the outside lights on his house on. After two sleepless nights I went over to his house and unscrewed them all. I guess what he has now is some kind of compromise.
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 10:05 a.m. Inappropriate
Yet another Get Off My Lawn post.
CrossCut will become the fortress of indignant elderly outrage, I guess.
Restaurants are too loud. Lights are too bright,
And those damn kids with their cellphones and tattoos- they drive too damn fast.
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 2:53 a.m. Inappropriate
I'll make you a deal. I'll shut up if your idiot mayor will stop collecting my taxes. Until then, I've got one vote same as you. And you know what? We old farts actually vote. You 20-somethings are busy smoking dope. By the way, could you hurry up with that latte?
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 9:10 a.m. Inappropriate
That's funny and accurate. We relics just know that things used to be better. Well, we're right, dammit.
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 11:11 a.m. Inappropriate
Seems as though they could have chosen a slightly less bluish color for them. I remember the transition from mercury to sodium, and what an improvement the sodium was. These LEDS look like something one would have seen in Warsaw Pact countries. And yes, they are too darn bright.
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 12:05 p.m. Inappropriate
And yes, I MEANT to leave my turn signal on for the last 6 blocks.
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 12:37 p.m. Inappropriate
These ugly lights make Seattle look like a used car lot!!!! Mercury vapor was ghastly. These lights aren't far behind. The Sodium was warm & gave the neighborhoods a soft, welcoming glow. These LED lights are waaaay too bright & they are dangerous in the rain. They create dark spaces outside their range. No neighbors will want to gather on a summer night under these spot lights. What was the City Council thinking....or, were they thinking, at all!!!
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 9:31 p.m. Inappropriate
Spot on! The cold blue unwelcoming light from these LEDs is an excellent argument for going to bed and getting up with the chickens. About the only worse light I can think of is low pressure sodium, a sickly yellow form of light, all concentrated on one single wavelength, utterly unlike the high pressure sodiums we are used to.
The low pressure sodium is or was the most efficient light source known, at least until LEDs came along. It was widely used in the German Democratic Republic. Fortunately it is seldom seen in the free world outside of a few parking garages. Astronomers like it because its single wavelength can be filtered out easily compared to other kinds of light. For some years the Palomar observatory pushed for neighboring cities to use them, but I think people finally revolted and put an end to that.
Let's hope that Seattleites revolt against these awful LEDs, with not only terribly cold color but the pulsations mentioned by dbreneman above. Even if the pulsation is not immediately apparent to the eye, it is very apparent to the brain, and probably causes all kinds of unhealthy effects. More arguments to stay out of Seattle, or go to bed early to stay away from them.
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 10:48 a.m. Inappropriate
Low pressure sodium light was also used as the key color in the precursor to modern green-screen motion picture matte technology. Walt Disney pioneered its use in "Mary Poppins." The narrow wavelength made it very easy to produce moving mattes with high-contrast monochromatic film. But as a source of general illumination it does leave a lot to be desired.
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 12:37 p.m. Inappropriate
LPS light went well with the Stalinist flatblocks and monuments of former Eastern Bloc nations, and the tough, hard bitten look of the people who lived there. A good setting for John LeCarre based movies, and a long way from Mary Poppins....
Supposedly one could easily see the border between East and West Germany from night flights by the color of the streetlights. I don't know whether reunification has liberated the Ossis from the tyranny of LPS lighting. I hope so.
Posted Fri, Mar 22, 9:48 p.m. Inappropriate
You assume the Council thinks, ever.
Posted Tue, Mar 19, 11:36 p.m. Inappropriate
So much for viewing the night time sky.
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 10:48 a.m. Inappropriate
Problem is the wavelength -- if they used "turtle safe" amber LEDs, no problem: cheaper to buy; cheaper to operate; readily available; no human health issues; no glare; no wildlife hazard; less interference with astronomy
The American Medical Association has warned against the lights Seattle is installing. It took them a long time after the problems started to be known, the AMA only came out on this last year.
https://www.google.com/search?q=american+medical+association+blue+night+light+hazard
AMA Adopts New Policies at Annual Meeting
For immediate release:
June 19, 2012
CHICAGO – The American Medical Association (AMA), the nation's largest physician organization, voted today during its annual policy-making meeting to adopt the following new policies:
Adverse Health Effects of Nighttime Lighting
The AMA today adopted policy recognizing that exposure to excessive light at night can disrupt sleep, exacerbate sleep disorders and cause unsafe driving conditions. The policy also supports the need for developing lighting technologies that minimize circadian disruption and encourages further research on the risks and benefits of occupational and environmental exposure to light at night.
"The natural 24-hour cycle of light and dark helps maintain alignment of circadian biological rhythms along with basic processes that help our bodies to function normally," said AMA board member Alexander Ding, M.D. "Excessive exposure to nighttime lighting disrupts these essential processes and can create potentially harmful health effects and hazardous situations."
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 2:59 p.m. Inappropriate
in my neighborhood they could have at least waited for the old lights we paid for, to burned out before replacing them with LED's
another waste of our hard earned money
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 3:30 p.m. Inappropriate
I wouldn't mind is we only had about a quarter of the streetlights we have now. The LED's should be a money saver over time; but they do not need to be so bright. It is nice to be able to go outside at night, and have it be night. What is the reason for the large amount of streetlights?
Posted Wed, Mar 20, 7:48 p.m. Inappropriate
It's my understanding that these new lights are harder to shoot-out, too. ;-)
Stimulus-funded, eh? Why am I not surprised?
Posted Fri, Mar 22, 9:47 p.m. Inappropriate
When I was in Seattle, I filed several complaints with City Light.
To no avail.
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