Around here they retrofit the post top lights with corn cobs but any overhead street light or flood light gets replaced. No NEMA heads here.

They retrofitted several post tops in neighborhoods with LEDs. They are actually very bright, but unfortunately they used 5000k instead of 3000k which would have looked nicer. Each post top is about as bright as a new 100w merc, maybe a bit dimmer but the area is lit very nicely.

I wonder why the utilities would want to stop installed HPS? The fixtures are cheaper and they use more energy! That's why NGrid didn't want to offer LEDs but actually the Public Utilities Commission "encouraged" NGrid to add LEDs to their rate tariff and NGrid does offer LEDs, but I haven't seen any towns use NGrid LEDs. Any place that's gone LED here has gone the route of buying ownership of the HPS lights from NGrid and replacing them with city-owned LEDs.

Utilities dont always want to sell more energy. The demand grows all the time anyway, and when it approaches the limits of their equipment (generators, substations, power lines) they may want to keep selling the existing volumes and postpone expensive upgrades

This still does not relate specifically to the LED vs HID question as modern HIDs provide same or better performance anyway

I've noticed HID being ruined quality-wise. Newer HPS lamps maybe last two years around here (Sylvania lamps) and the newer fixtures are physically very cheap. The doors unlatch at the lightest touch, the hinges bind and snap off, the reflectors fall out, the ignitors die prematurely, The ballasts don't have enough varnish and they're undersized so they burn up in service after a few years, and the non-LED photocells seem to be dying earlier too, possibly to promote the "better" LED-rated PCs that cost three times more.

90s HPS lamps around here (they used GE lamps then) lasted well into the mid-late 2000s. Many of the Sylvania lamps they're using here cycle after only a couple of months while others do last. Seems Sylvania is crappifying their lamp quality. GE cobraheads (the ones I described earlier, which they used here) are also only a fraction of what they used to be.

So they're making LEDs better than the competition, but not my improving the LEDs. They're doing it by lowering the standard that the LEDs have to meet (making everything else worse). They did the same thing in the 80s with mercury vapor lamps. The quality went WAY downhill (lamps dim out fast, ballasts used cheap capacitors that lost farads, etc.) which made HPS look better. And with T12s, once T8s came out they banned the only decent-output tubes at the time (in the mid-90s we basically had CWX and DX) and the ballasts got really junky by the 90s. All in the name of making the new T8s look better in comparison.

Even with incandescent street lights they crappified the quality. Traditionally the reflectors were glazed porcelain and were terrific. By the 70s they switched to bare aluminum reflectors, which tarnished and turned black in a couple years, rendering them useless. And lately, the modern halogens are dying prematurely and are priced so high that the LEDs end up being the same price after the subsidies. It's insane what hold the big manufacturers have on everything.

Truck Drivers illegally using the tunnel while the buffer space is temporarily being used for traffic are smashing the wall mounted high pressure sodium lights. Mn/DOT doesn't have enough fixtures to replace them and can't buy more. So I wonder if they will be forced to install an LED system even though the tunnel renovation plans didn't include it.

http://www.startribune.com/the-drive-broken-lights-latest-problem-in-lowry-tunnel/434840153/
Note the picture is actually sideways, the lights are on the wall, not the ceiling

Truck Drivers illegally using the tunnel while the buffer space is temporarily being used for traffic are smashing the wall mounted high pressure sodium lights. Mn/DOT doesn't have enough fixtures to replace them and can't buy more. So I wonder if they will be forced to install an LED system even though the tunnel renovation plans didn't include it.

http://www.startribune.com/the-drive-broken-lights-latest-problem-in-lowry-tunnel/434840153/
Note the picture is actually sideways, the lights are on the wall, not the ceiling

Oh good grief. And it just has to be the remaining HPS fixtures that weren't going to be replaced soon either. How long has this been a problem for? I don't remember this always happening. I used to think those lights were fluorescent with orange lamps before I knew that they were HPS.

Oh good grief. And it just has to be the remaining HPS fixtures that weren't going to be replaced soon either. How long has this been a problem for? I don't remember this always happening. I used to think those lights were fluorescent with orange lamps before I knew that they were HPS.

I had thought that downgrading the tunnel fixtures and approach lights to LED was always part of the plan for the Lowry Tunnel/ I-94 construction, just as the remainder of the 1980s lighting system from Shingle Creek to Nicollet Ave. is being replaced and relocated during construction (Which, by the way, drives me crazy because MNDOT isn't even reusing the "old" LED fixtures they installed along this stretch last year, and instead is using brand new LED fixtures, even though most of the old ones worked fine).

A video of a truck illegally driving through the tunnel destroying 47 light fixtures.

http://www.startribune.com/semitrailer-truck-busts-47-lights-while-driving-through-lowry-hill-tunnel/437694843/

The original intent was to keep the HPS tunnel lighting system. It was much newer than the surrounding lights, would require a custom design and special LED fixtures, and the energy savings for a small installation didn't justify replacing them. Of course now with a lot of the lights smashed and no apparent way to get them, who knows.

A video of a truck illegally driving through the tunnel destroying 47 light fixtures.

http://www.startribune.com/semitrailer-truck-busts-47-lights-while-driving-through-lowry-hill-tunnel/437694843/

The original intent was to keep the HPS tunnel lighting system. It was much newer than the surrounding lights, would require a custom design and special LED fixtures, and the energy savings for a small installation didn't justify replacing them. Of course now with a lot of the lights smashed and no apparent way to get them, who knows.

That just hurts to watch. I know they can't just simply replace those tube-lights, but what about the HPS floods that were damaged in the first clip? Are those custom made too?

Wow, the driver had to know they were hitting them, I get it if it was one or two lights but unless the stereo was just screaming they would of heard the parts crashing down between the tractor and trailer..

And I love how the MDOT is having problems finding out who did it, yet the people commenting on the site even provide the phone number of the company, maybe the MDOT needs to watch there own video..

Absolutely careless driving by the truck driver. Not to mention the remains of the fixtures and lamps are going to be run over by the drivers, potentially giving them flats.

Honestly i was expecting more of a "bang" when i clicked the video link... i find the lack of exploding fixtures a downer.... but.... It is also kindof a downer that he/she destroyed all those nice tunnel fixtures

Well, they never LED-ized my area over my summer break which means D-day will most certainly happen while I am in school. Really sucks since there are tons of model 13's around here and I hear they aren't that common.   

One of my contacts and Mn/DOT told me that since they can't get replacement tunnel fixtures for love or money, they have to replace the whole system, and it takes time to get it in the budget so that will likely happen next summer. They'd also like to get replacing the all the HPS tower lights into the budget for next summer.

Nooo, not the highmasts too!