19th Ave E, illuminated (Image: CHS)
In an initiative born after pilot tests right here on Capitol Hill, Seattle has been replacing its streetlights with new LED bulbs over the past five years.
This summer, the southern segment of Zone 3 got the treatment with the installation of the new “48 to 62 percent lower energy consumption”-achieving bulbs across the single-family home neighborhoods of North Capitol Hill.
CHS guesstimates we’ve seen a resulting “48 to 62 percent” uptick in complaints emailed to us that the new bulbs are “too bright.”
“It’s like the moon is parked outside our house,” one reader complains.
Seattle City Light spokesperson Scott Thomsen said moonlight was the idea:
The most obvious change with the new lights is the color. The new lights are similar to moonlight while the old high-pressure sodium lights had a warmer, amber tone to them. When you first experience the change, it is very noticeable and can draw your attention to the light. When you look directly at it, you get a greater feeling of brightness. After a few weeks, the color becomes more familiar, draws less attention and generates fewer complaints.
Capitol Hill residents, Thomsen reminds, were partly responsible for the new moonlight stretching across the city. During the pilot tests of new lights around the Hill, Thomsen said one bulb variant stood out as being a “no way” option
“The biggest complaints were reserved for test lights that were even cooler in color, that some in Capitol Hill referred to as ‘zombie blue,'” he tells us. “We listened to them and chose the moonlight color they preferred.”
Overall, Thomsen says City Light has had complaints on less than 4% of the LED streetlight installations.
“If a customer is experiencing a problem, they can contact us,” Thomsen said. “Our streetlight team will visit the location to review the situation and put together a plan for any corrections that might be needed.”
You can learn more and report issues here.
City Light Rate Increases
Thursday at 6 PM at the Yesler Community Center, Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant is hosting a public forum on proposed City Light rate increases:
Come discuss Seattle City Light’s proposed rate increases. Help build a movement to reduce rates for working families and people on fixed incomes, while making corporations and the super-wealthy pay their fair share.
to residents … grow up buy curtains or blinds.
improved lighting makes everyone safer at night
it’s NOT IMPROVED LIGHTING
It’s only supposedly improved energy efficiency.
I agree, safety is far more important, especially when the rain and fog comes back.
I lived on 19th Ave E when they installed the new lights, and man … at night it’s lit up like a movie set. But I appreciate the safety angle.
The switch to LED lights is a big deal for filmmakers too :)
“Why Hollywood Will Never Look the Same Again on Film: LEDs Hit the Streets of LA & NY”
http://nofilmschool.com/2014/02/why-hollywood-will-never-look-the-same-again-on-film-leds-in-la-ny
I love LED technology and am glad its being installed in our street lamps. I do wish the city had chosen a hue with a lower color temp rating. You can still have the same lumens using a softer color temp rating. The color temp they chose is too cold.
I’m glad they are using LED streetlights now. But they are a little bright when looking directly at them (or simply looking down a street with many of them in view). I think they should have some covers that more effectively diffuse the light. I think that solution would reduce most of the complaints and make for a better street environment.
They put these uber white lights up to save energy. Never mind the cost savings won’t be realized for YEARS.
The amber lights they replaced became the Federal standard in the 1970s for SAFETY. White light causes glare, Amber improves visibility and creates a glow rather than being so harsh and white and direct.
Now when it rains, the super white lights create nothing but glare on the wet streets. Last week when it was raining it was almost complete blindness on Dexter Avenue from the glare.
A simple amber cover would have improved visibility, but the City screwed up.
i haven’t been able to find any federal reports that show that amber lighting is safer than white lighting. if you have a link, please post it.
regarding the glare, there are a few articles online about the switch-over from as far back as 2012 and how you can contact the city to tweak them. unfortunately, yes, the city did kind of screw-up in implementing an “all-alike” program of replacement (lumen for lumen is what i’ve been reading which doesn’t take into account led’s brighter output of light). but one of the biggest benefits of led lighting is that they can be customized; the city just needs to know there’s an issue. i recommend if people have an issue with a light they call and report it – city light’s streetlight complaint line: 206-684-7056
and it’s not “supposedly improved energy efficiency.” led lighting has shown proven energy savings compared to traditional light sources (http://energy.gov/eere/ssl/why-ssl).
wow, Denizen, anger much?
I will agree that amber is superior to bright white due to glare and the eye’s ability to see better in yellowish light. However, I am a bit skeptical that they’ll never recoup the cost. Time will tell.
The scariest part about walking around Capitol Hill is how dark it is at night in a high-crime neighborhood. I’m baffled by why so many of our streets have no lighting – I carry around a high-intensity flashlight when I walk at night.
If people don’t like having streets bright enough to feel safe walking on, they can close their blinds. ;)
People are complaining about how bright they are when they look directly at them? I guess to me the logical thing is to not look directly at them.
I’m glad they are working out the color kinks. My only wish is that they would install diffusers lenses over the bare bulbs to disperse the light more and make it much less traumatic for people like me when driving or walking under them who wear glasses. Of course they should have also tested these in winter, not summer, on darker and rainier nights but that’s water under the lamp now. But diffusers can still be added…
For what it’s worth I went to the website and made this suggestion. If anyone else believes it is worth pursuing I urge you to do the same.
They were installed in my neighborhood last year and the glare at night is quite harsh, especially while driving in the rain. Diffusers would be welcome.
I’ll check that out from home and send a similar suggestion in.
Thanks Scott!!
They do give one the impression of being thrust into a stadium when they turn on, but as someone who’s up and leaving the house before sunrise, I do appreciate the crackheads and armed robbers having fewer shadows to lurk in. Blackout curtains help.
These lights were installed months ago in front of my building. I am on the. 3rd floor and at eye level with them. Even with curtains they still lit up the apartment and it was more than irritating when trying to look outside. I emailed my complaints and within the week covers were installed.
Being a female who works at a job with 24/7 hours, I am often riding the bus home after midnight from working Swing shift, or waiting to catch the first bus downtown at 5am for an early shift, I appreciate the bright lights on the main streets so I can feel less apprehensive when it’s otherwise pitch black outside. And for those times when I need to sleep and there is brightness outside (the sun or streetlamp) I have blinds and blackout curtains.
I remember the last time the city changed out the type of light bulbs the street lights used. It must have been the late 70’s-early 80’s. The exact same type of hand-wringers and and government conspiracy types came out from the same type of rocks and said the same sort of stuff. Of course, there wasn’t an internet at the time, so they had to be content with mimeographing fliers which they tacked onto telephone poles and left in public phone books.
I like the new lights. The old ones were too yellow.
Once again, in true disgustingly Seattle fashion, the people who are most negatively affected by the change and who dare to say something about it are treated as the people at fault. It’s sickening, and we see it over and over with intrusive light and noise and airborne chemical contamination (smoke, carcinogenic dryer sheets, “personal” scent applied heavily enough to leave a 20-foot vapor trail, etc). The people actually creating the problem blame everyone else, get to feel smug and tough, and that works great. Not.
Just imagine: you’ve finally found a place you love and can afford, and shortly after moving in, here comes an “improvement” program which makes your place glow at night like a Nascar track. Boo-hoo, Seattlites say, it’s better for those of us who walk past your place and are too lazy to carry a flashlight or police whistle or pepper spray in case of emergency, so you should be happy to replace every single window treatment in your house with blackout curtains (or tape foil over your windows, or black plastic garbage bags, or foil-backed insulation panels or your own particular choice of temporary drywall) because someone’s “safety” is more important than everyone else’s decent sleep. Didn’t anybody notice that the Cal Anderson bright-light-at-night experiment was stopped because there was no noticeable effect in deterring crime?
I wonder if City Light has considered that unhappy comments about the new brighter streetlights taper off after a couple of weeks because nothing happens and people give up. It’s easy to decide why something happens when you don’t care about useful data.
Finally, what about the big picture, namely light pollution? It’s a serious problem, foIks… when’s the last time you saw the Milky Way? I know, never mind that, let’s turn on all the outdoor lights in all the cities 24/7 and everyone who doesn’t like it can just move out, right? Good grief. (Oh, and FYI, take a look at the International Dark Sky Association, darksky.org.)
If anybody’s interested –> From our friends on TV: Kristen Drew writes — “I’m a reporter at KOMO4. I’m wondering if any of your readers, who are concerned about the streetlights, might be willing to speak with me on-camera? I can be reached at 206-795-9977. The story will air tonight at 11.”