I’m just interested to see what street lighting used on highways or freeways in other areas.

Here, the freeway lighting is mostly LED with some remaining HPS. The lighting is owned by CalTrans, who completed a major LED conversion 4-5 years ago. The sections that were converted earlier use Leotek E-Cobras and GreenCobras, which are 89w, 100w, and 183w. The GreenCobras are still performing well, but the E-Cobras have dimmed out and turned yellow. The areas with newer lighting use GE Evolve ERS2 fixtures, which I believe are 140w. There are always SolarMax SMX-WIE fixtures thrown in, because they were used as spot replacements for a while. These are of an unknown wattage. Most fixtures are 5000K, but newer installations tend to be 4000K. On the occasional overpass and exit ramp, there are 400w HPS GE M-400A2 FCO fixtures. I know of one mercury vapor fixture, which is an older M-400 with a /DX lamp. I don’t know if it works.

All my area went 6500K LEDs.    There are few MH and HPS remaining.

All my area went 6500K LEDs.    There are few MH and HPS remaining.

Not good to hear, and 6500K is even worse! 
Freeway lighting here is all 5000K and 4000K, which isn’t great but is at least a little less cold and harsh.

Not good to hear, and 6500K is even worse! 
Freeway lighting here is all 5000K and 4000K, which isn’t great but is at least a little less cold and harsh.

Well, I'm not 100% sure if they are 6500K, maybe between 5500K and 6000K.    But still much worse than the original HPS fixtures. 

Here in Florida on both I-95 and the Turnpike most of the lights are HPS and all of the cobraheads on both highways are GE M-400s.
Many of them are quite old going back to the 80s.
However FDOT is experimenting with LEDs and has installed some in small stretches to see how they perform.
I have no idea what model fixtures they are as I don't spend time learning about LED lighting.
I will say this though I think that they do a very good job but I have no confidence in their reliability.
As far as their color goes they look a lot like 3500K to me.

At least you guys got 3000-4000K LED that are more or less good, here they cranked all the way up to 6000K in practically all the country. 

Here in Florida on both I-95 and the Turnpike most of the lights are HPS and all of the cobraheads on both highways are GE M-400s.
Many of them are quite old going back to the 80s.
However FDOT is experimenting with LEDs and has installed some in small stretches to see how they perform.
I have no idea what model fixtures they are as I don't spend time learning about LED lighting.
I will say this though I think that they do a very good job but I have no confidence in their reliability.
As far as their color goes they look a lot like 3500K to me.

Nice to hear that some areas still have HPS on major roads. GE M-400s are some of the most classic and reliable HID fixtures, at least in my opinion. Honestly I hope they do not decide to switch to whatever LEDs they have been testing. Do you know if the wattage of the HPS?

Here it's a mix of everything, but the main lights are Leotek EC1s and GC1s. Solarmax SMX-WIEs are the main spot replacement fixture around here, with the older ones being 4000K and the newer ones being 3000K. There are still some GE M-400As that still remain on some overpasses here, in both 200w and 310w HPS.

The highmasts used here were Holophane in 1000w HPS and Holophane HMSCs (I believe) in HPS/MH combinations (on a single pole). New LED highmast replacements are Holophane HMAO.

Nice to hear that some areas still have HPS on major roads. GE M-400s are some of the most classic and reliable HID fixtures, at least in my opinion. Honestly I hope they do not decide to switch to whatever LEDs they have been testing. Do you know if the wattage of the HPS?

They are all 400w HPS. You're definitely right about the M-400s being some of the most reliable HID fixtures, they rarely go bad just occasional relamping.
I don't think that FDOT is sold on the LEDs yet as they haven't installed very many.
Here's what I don't understand the energy savings may be huge for using LEDs on interstates and highways but won't that be offset by constant maintenance costs as they are hardly reliable?

They are all 400w HPS. You're definitely right about the M-400s being some of the most reliable HID fixtures, they rarely go bad just occasional relamping.
I don't think that FDOT is sold on the LEDs yet as they haven't installed very many.
Here's what I don't understand the energy savings may be huge for using LEDs on interstates and highways but won't that be offset by constant maintenance costs as they are hardly reliable?

Nice, 400w HPS is nice, bright and efficient without all of the glare that comes with LED. I agree with you, while LED fixtures may save money on electricity, the maintenance costs are much higher than with other types of lighting.

@fluorescent lover 40: Very similar lighting here. The overpasses all seem to be 200w and 250w HPS though, I haven’t seen any 310w.

In my area the freeways are operated by 3 different agencies. The main ones are owned by the Ministry of Transport, Ontario (MTO). The City of Toronto also owns a small number of local expressways within city limits. Finally the ETR operates the toll road in the region.

Anyway MTO freeways are for the most part still lit with 750-1kW HPS highmast lighting with a small number of 250-400w HPS cobraheads still in use. They have stopped installing HPS since 2015 or so and the freeways built since have been using LED highmast lighting. There have been some test conversions and some small conversions to LED but more than half of the lights are still HPS. HPS replaced 400w and 700w MV en masse around 1991-1992.

On the City of Toronto owned expressways, two use 250w HPS cobraheads while one is predominately 1kW HPS highmast. I haven't seen any LEDs on these expressways as of yet. The HPS lights replaced all the Philips SOX 180 luminaires between 1995 and 2005. The SOX 180 luminaires were installed in the mid late 70s to replace the original 4ft and 6ft Powerlite Powergroove fluorescent luminaires

The ETR operates the Highway 407 toll freeway. The lighting on there has been LED since around 2013-2014 with LED highmast luminaires replacing the original HPS highmast luminaires installed in 1997. The toll gantries once had 400w MH floodlights to illuminate the license plates of the vehicles entering and exiting for the automated toll collection system but those have been swapped with some LED solution (perhaps blend of visible and IR) 

The MTO and Toronto freeways once had overhead sign lighting. The sign lighting was originally HO fluorescent in the 1960s, then 125w MV in the 1970s and during the 1980s they were in the process of converting them to 70w HPS. The sign lighting was removed or disconnected around the early 90s.

Interesting, how do the LED highmasts compare to HPS? Anyway, cool to have 1KW HID in use in any form. Is 750w HPS for a proprietary fixture? I’ve never heard it being manufactured other than for some proprietary ballast made by Sylvania. HPS is still great to have in use, but I can’t deny that 700w MV would have been absolutely awesome to see in use. As for the other freeways, it’s not great to hear that some many fluorescent and LPS luminaries were replaced. 400w MH lamps probably worked well for brightly lighting small areas, but those can be a maintenance nightmare sometimes. Fluorescent has always been better for sign lighting in my opinion, and they once tested out induction sign lights in my area. I wish those had caught on, because they worked great.

They actually look pretty good at night compared to HPS. I think the directional light from the LEDs are pretty well suited for highmast lighting.

IIRC it was either 700w or 750w. I forgot which. Years ago I saw a GE HMAA highmast for sale at a pawn shop and it had a NEMA tag for either one of those wattages on it. I think the highmast was 347v so I passed on getting it.

Yeah I vaguely remember the LPS luminaires getting replaced and they were a really a sight to see. Ironically I heard that lack of easily obtainable parts and lamps led to their demise and replacement with 250w HPS. This was back in the 90s and early 2000s when LPS luminaires were still being made. The PG17 luminaires must have been awesome to see IMO.

The 400w MH was used to allow for the automated license plate recognition system to toll vehicles. They must have upgraded the camera system when they changed the lighting as the LEDs are nowhere near as bright as the original MH.     

They actually look pretty good at night compared to HPS. I think the directional light from the LEDs are pretty well suited for highmast lighting.

IIRC it was either 700w or 750w. I forgot which. Years ago I saw a GE HMAA highmast for sale at a pawn shop and it had a NEMA tag for either one of those wattages on it. I think the highmast was 347v so I passed on getting it.

Yeah I vaguely remember the LPS luminaires getting replaced and they were a really a sight to see. Ironically I heard that lack of easily obtainable parts and lamps led to their demise and replacement with 250w HPS. This was back in the 90s and early 2000s when LPS luminaires were still being made. The PG17 luminaires must have been awesome to see IMO.

The 400w MH was used to allow for the automated license plate recognition system to toll vehicles. They must have upgraded the camera system when they changed the lighting as the LEDs are nowhere near as bright as the original MH.     

That’s surprising, but good. LEDs do have very directional light which works for highmast lighting, but how is the glare? The side glare from 30w LEDs on my street is not good at all, so I can’t imagine it’s great with high wattage LEDs.

LPS lamps and fixture parts did begin to get more expensive during that time period, and eventually less common, which could have led to their replacement. At least they used HPS, which kept that warm sodium color and isn’t harsh and bluish like LED. If the fixtures that replaced those 400w MH floodlights are noticeably dimmer, I would guess that the cameras have some kind of infrared lighting now.

I believe the glare was actually better than the glare from LED cobraheads. The higher mounting height seems to have helped in that regard.

Here's a shot of the old LPS lights on the Gardiner:



And the PG17 luminaires: