The city of Los Angeles has taken a huge step in becoming more energy-efficient. The city has decided to replace its street lights and bus stop lighting with LEDs – bus stop lighting will be solar-powered and off the grid (cnet.com). LA’s existing 209,000 streetlights will be replaced.
LA's 6th Street Bridge with Sodium-Vapor Lamps (Image via cnet.com)
Talk about savings. When complete, the city’s energy consumption for public lighting should be cut by 40 percent and save 40,500 tons of carbon emissions per year, according to city statistics (cnet.com). On top of that, there will be fiscal savings associated with the project…less money from taxpayers, budget savings, etc.
In addition to making the city more energy efficient, the switch from high pressure sodium lights across the city’s highways, to LED’s, is also drastically changing the city’s look (cnet.com). When you look across the Los Angeles landscape, the yellowish orange tint is the dominant color, but when adding LED’s, the landscape takes on a slick, white, heaven-like glow.
We don’t even think about the safety involved in replacing these bulbs with LED’s. Look how much clearer LA’s 6th street bridge is with these energy-saving, white lights (below) than the traditional sodium-vapor lamps (above). These LED’s drastically reduce dark spots on the road, allowing drivers to have a much more visible path, thus reducing accidents and vehicle-related deaths at night. An interesting study for the city of Los Angeles to conduct…accidents prior to the street light project vs. accidents after the completion of this project.
LA's 6th Street Bridge with LED Streetlights (Image via cnet.com)
I would love to see other metro areas replace their streetlights. They’re safer, cost-efficient, energy-efficient, and they provide a much cleaner look to the overall landscape. Not to mention, this a quick and fairly inexpensive process, giving the city more freedom to replace existing lights or put lights in new places without having to dig up sidewalks or mess with electricity poles. Seems like a win-win solution to me.
Tags: energy-efficiency, led