Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
This is so not a big deal, and yet I'm kinda sad and upset.
After 43 years of only knowing the beautifully pervasive orange nightime glow of chicago's 8 billion sodium street lamps, today the city switched out the lights in our alley to LEDs. I was hanging out on our back deck when they switched on and I was just like "WTF is this bullshit!"
They're so obnoxiously goddamn white. Where's my friendly familiar orange?
Oh well, at least I still have the orange sodium street lamps out in front on our street, for now......... their days are certainly numbered.
Farewell, orange glow, I will forever miss you. 
Anyone else suspicious of this new-fangled LED awfulness? |
You will come to appreciate them. They seem brighter, but I think it's because it gives off a white light. You'll get used to it before you know it.
Also, things seem crisper and sharper-looking somehow with LED street lights, and objects are in their proper color. And, the fixtures they're in aim the light downward better, so there's less light pollution in the sky---you just might be able to see more stars at night than before. And of course when they turn on, they're already at full brightness, unlike those sodium lights.
The City of Los Angeles started switching its streetlights out back in 2009, and it was a four-year project. At the time, it was the largest such conversion of any city in the world. I've noticed the change when driving in the hills and canyons. I feel I can see more stars in the sky.
The LA suburb my parents live in (Cerritos), switched out all their streetlights to LED last year. It was a 1 or 2-month project (Cerritos is only a little less than 9 square miles, or something). Before the switch, residents were given the opportunity to vote on which type of LED lighting they liked based on brightness and color. There were like 6 or 8 examples installed at one of the big parks in the city, and residents were encouraged to visit them at night and vote on which type they liked (one for arterial streets, and one for residential streets). After the switch, it was interesting for me to see what the street I grew up on looked like with LED street lighting. It did somehow look odd to me, but I got used to it really fast (I visit my parents regularly).
Oh, and no need to worry about historic or antique-type street lights. They have LED "bulbs" for those types of lights. The city I live in (South Pasadena) has a lot of those short lamp posts with the acorn-shaped glass tops that I so associate with "old" LA; those have been outfitted with LED lights.