Whats with all the quoting?
Very hard to follow this thread LOL.
Here the state DOT (RIDOT) has lighting poles from the late 50s and 60s still up. They have individual photocells too, not even group-controlled. Most originally had OV-25 flatbottoms and then in the mid-90s RIDOT went all HPS and used drop lens 250W M-250R2s to replace the 400W MVs. They had used M-250R1s and L-150s as spot replacements for failed 400W MVs in the 80s and in the HPS changeout they were kept, as they were already HPS. RIDOT goes several years between group relamps though, so most of those 80s HPS fixtures are long gone, as the endlessly cycling lamps eventually killed the ignitors. Many of the 60s RIDOT lights have wiring issues too but they still keep them for whatever reason.
If your 80s systems have bad wiring there's something wrong though lol. Our 80s systems still look like new 30 years later. Those are group-controlled for the most part, though RIDOT did still use some photocell-controlled lights in the 80s.
A lot of our freeway lights were actually owned by the electric company and leased to the state highway department like wood pole lights are leased to the city/town. Most of those National Grid (the PoCo here) lights were very poorly maintained and have wiring issues left and right. The state wanted to implement a lighting curfew on its freeways (shutting the lights off between 12AM and 5AM) but they couldn't do it with the NGrid lights since NGrid would only offer standard photocells (i.e. dusk-to-dawn operation) and they only offer HPS. NGrid will not use LEDs. Not for freeway lighting and not for any of its wood pole lights either (if cities want to have LEDs, they have to purchase ownership of the existing lights and then hire a private contractor to do an LED changeout. Providence, RI has done this and they're about 50% LED. Other than Providence and the freeway lights, the rest of the state's public lighting is still all HPS and some MV and incandescent).
So anyway, because NGrid provided little options to control the lights (in addition to the fact that most of their lights did not work at all and many poles were missing due to knockdowns that were never replaced) RIDOT opted to cancel their contracts with most of the NGrid lighting and install their own systems, which are group-switched, allowing a lighting curfew to be used. They're also metered, so RIDOT only gets billed for what they use rather than all the lights being unmetered like the NGrid poles. And further, since RIDOT owns these new poles they installed, they can put up their own LEDs. There are currently only a few NGrid-owned lighting systems left on the freeways here. All use 250W HPS drop lens lights that have photocells and run dusk-to-dawn. When RIDOT replaced most of the NGrid lights, they used taller davit poles (instead of the NGrid truss and tapered poles) with 400W FCO lights to replace the 250W HPS drop lens lights on short poles.
