Before I rant, I live in a small rural community, and unless you call and report a light out, it won't get fixed.

Now, Having said that...

I FOUND AN LED LIGHT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD!!  I know it's inevitable that all street lighting will be LED, but it's just depressing because I (guess I should be happy to say) grew up in an era where I watched lights flicker to life and warm up while changing a variety of colors.  Little bit of red there, little bit of purple here.  Now, it is simply I/O 😡.  I thought as small as the area was, it would be at least 2020 before we started seeing LEDs here

I had a nightmare in the past about a similar imaginary situation, where Haifa replaced all of the Europhane Pilote T1 100/150W HPS lanterns in my mother street to Gaash Venus LED lanterns.

The fact that LED can be or ON or OFF but not in intermadiate modes such as run-up to full brightness and cooling down before hot restrike, and that when they "cycles" they simply transforming into stroboscopic or flash lamps, is one of the millions of reasons why I hate LEDs in areas where HID lamps would present, even if this is the same case with incandescent, fluorescent, CFL and induction streetlighting (Yes: Some types of fluorescent lamps [Long T5 and low mercury/mercury-indium amalgam dosed lamps], most CFLs and some induction lamps, takes time to reach full output, but in most cases it isn't noticeable and if yes, the color is the same either when the lamp is cold and run-up to full brightness and when it is hot at full output, and have no hot restrike time). Even if the run-up of LPS/SOX lamps is colorful, they takes ages to reach full output, and they usually restrikes immediately similar to fluorescents, CFLs, inductions and incandescents.

I live in an area similar to you where you need to report lights out. LED changeover started about 3-4 years ago and is going strong. Any work that has to be done involving any utility-owned or utility-maintained cobra head gets a LED instead. Perfectly working cobra heads get replaced with LED if the pole should be replaced for whatever reason. Some customers who I guess wanted a different wattage than HPS 100 watts rented cobra heads and those get replaced with 100W HPS Cooper Vanguard. Of course new installs are LED only.

I've seen a couple of LED flood lights that were installed in utility poles, so I guess those will be LEDified eventually. I wonder what will replace the Cooper Vanguard HPS.

Yep it's happening, I have two HPS city owned lights one in front and one on the side, and LED's just went up across the street, I imagine it won't take long, but it will make my LPS lights stand out way more, and the city can't do anything about them..

my city is still lit entirely by HPS and MV (yes MV) my camera is too much of a turd to get night pics.... but i would not lie about something like this.... reason i did not ever mention this is because i'm a bit scared that a  simple mention could change everything (stupid i know) i guesss its called a jinx? ugh... only time will tell now...




snuck out of the house a few nights ago (wanted to take a walk.... i am very close to battle creek, which is not the best place.. lots of cops everywhere... suprised i did not get in trouble for breaking curfew.... anyway, left the house at 12:00 (parents were asleep) and got back at 4:30 , walked about 10 miles total, tok a few pics, found an abandoned bait shop, was dark as (...), it was underground, i snuck in (tritium keychain proved useful) found a power cord... yey... i might do that again sometime.... also saw a tweaker... he was running around about four blocks away from me... i was dressed in dark clothing and kindof stayed out of view range... also saw a hooker... avoided that like a house fire, also saw a police chase and another instance where cops quite literally skidded into a side street, my town is very interesting at night... needless to say, i came armed with about 17 years of streetsmarts and a tent stake , here are a few of the pics that actually came out in the poorish quality range ALL HPS and MV

also the lighting looks uneven because i turned the ISO all the way down.... the place is quite well lit

(the way i worded this post may seem a bit blunt but none of what i said was false lol)

part of the nearby harper creek area is converting to LED... it appears to be creeping slowly, but i have  bit of faith that HPS and MV will remain prominent but I'm probably just reassuring myself... either way the memories of my non-glary,non-white night childhood will remain, but perhaps they will not convert all the areas... after all harper creek has its own separate little government...

You think you are the only one out there that sees the LED as downgrade in regards to glare and allowing a variety in lighitng ?

I've just read a very interesting article:

Considerations by cities should include:

    Where and when is lighting warranted or unwarranted?
    Will residents accept part-night illumination programs where lighting is dimmed or switched off overnight?
    What do residents actually want in terms of lighting quality and character?
    Has enough public input been solicited into the decision-making process?
    Have test installations been erected to show residents options for lighting levels and color temperature?
    What sort of optics are in the lamps a city proposes to buy? Do they produce unacceptable levels of glare?
    Has the city pressed potential contractors on the full array of LED product offerings?
    Has the city conducted any assessment as to the environmental impact of converting to LED from older lamp technologies?

As far as I'm aware none of that has been done here, we've just been foisted with glare bombs that are probably the cheapest that the city could buy.

Here is the full article

The key sentence in that article:

"What do residents actually want in terms of lighting quality and character?"

Nobody ever asked us as city residents what we wanted, if they had, they would have been left in no doubt..! 

The key sentence in that article:

"What do residents actually want in terms of lighting quality and character?"

Nobody ever asked us as city residents what we wanted, if they had, they would have been left in no doubt..! 

Absolutely.!!!

Government pisses me off sometimes. I'd much rather be rid of them than have them do things under my nose. Anarchy seems appealing to a lighting enthusiast.

I just read an article this week about the town north of me, has replaced the lights on their main street to AEL ATB2. I saw it the other day driving by, and Googled it and found the article. Apparently it happened last fall, since they said they wanted to get it ready before the Christmas parade.

They said it was just a test and if they liked it they would consider changing the rest of the sodium to LED. The only MV lights there are in private parking lots. Everything else I could find is newer GE HPS fixtures there.

My town I haven't heard anything of the change. For brand new installations they're using LED AEL ATB2 but they're still replacing existing fixtures with HPS AEL 115 even in the last few weeks. My town has a lot more interesting stuff than the surrounding ones, and is the only one I know around that still has MV fixtures in places.

Where I live we're on GEC and they spot replace any HPS yard lights to LED Evluma as lamps fail or for new installations.

My city is 100% HPS, well maintained.  Towns should ask the residents if they like the existing sodium and mercury lamps before just destroying everything for LEDs. Hopefully they at least use the same good quality AELs instead of getting crap like Leoteks.

Well I didn't hear that Tomball is going LED yet, I know that TXDOT is. But I also now know that CPE is putting LEDs on the streets. I might think that Tomball will go LED as possibly by mid 2020. Not too sure, but that's what I think. As CPE is not relamping the HPS fixtures in Tomball, which is a sign that LED is on the way. I'm gonna try to see if I can save one of the Westinghouse OV-25 4th gen fixtures.

My city is 100% HPS, well maintained.  Towns should ask the residents if they like the existing sodium and mercury lamps before just destroying everything for LEDs. Hopefully they at least use the same good quality AELs instead of getting crap like Leoteks.

What they should do and what they actually do are two entirely separate things. Around here, nobody consulted anybody, they just ripped out the HID lamps and replaced them en masse with the most dreadful glare-bombs of LED fixtures you can imagine  

There are a handful of HPS lamps remaining, but they're vanishing fast