Light, Lights Lights

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mass88

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Has anyone noticed the high number of lights along the Expressway between South Bay and the South Shore Plaza that do not work?

Don't get why so many are out.
 
Maybe an energy-saving experiment? Most highways have far more lighting than they need, which is obnoxious for the surrounding neighborhoods.
 
You must be talking any highway not in this state. We have terrible lighting along highways and major roadways.

Not to mention the city itself has rather poor lighting in a lot of areas.

In any event, lighting is needed along heavily traveled portions of highways.
 
Most MA highways have no lights at all. 24, 140, 195, etc. As soon as u hit RI on 195, the road lights up like a christmas tree.
 
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Yeah, most modern freeways lack any kind of lighting. Thats what headlights are for.
 
jass said:
Yeah, most modern freeways lack any kind of lighting. Thats what headlights are for.
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I don't know in Dubai (seemingly modern at least superficially) -- you can drive from Dubai City to the United Emirates University in Al Ain -- withouth any headlights -- it is lit better than a downtown street

Of course electricity is essentially free in the most of the UAE
 
It gets really dark in remote deserts and other places where there isn't significant light pollution. Living in the north eastern US one doesn't really have a concept how dark a moonless night really is.
 
Lurker said:
Living in the north eastern US one doesn't really have a concept how dark a moonless night really is.
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If you live in/are from Freetown, MA you do. Lightless streets, lightless highways, darkness. Just you and the darkness. Used to freak the crap outta me just walking down the street from a friends house. What it comes down to is that it's actually quite dangerous.
 
My thinking is that in most major cities, in the highways, freeways, expressways (whatever you like to call them) that pass through high population centers, there is good lighting which makes it easy to navigate as exits are closer together, there tends to be more lanes, and traffic is heavier.

Boston is a dark city compared to most other major cities.
 
SE Expressway needs the same kind of lighting replacement that 93 is getting in Somerville and Medford, the Pike got about 8 years ago in Newton and Allston, and Storrow got last year. All the wires are shorting out. I like the new fixtures they're doing north of town...replacing two energy-inefficient glare-spewing old fixtures on the center median with single full-cutoff fixtures that do just as good a job lighting the road. Unfortunately the new exit ramp fixtures aren't full cutoff and still pump out too much glare.

I wish MA had a full-cutoff law on the books like CT does now because we're just too inconsistent with new installations. CT hasn't changed out a whole lot of its road lighting (basically the law just mandates any new or replacement streetlights have to be cutoff, but doesn't force replacement of anything existing). But it did require that all businesses with angled floodlights hooked up to municipal poles had to get hooded shielding on them and that new permits for commercial buildings require cutoff security and parking lot lighting. Believe the subsidized statewide upgrades to those pole-mount floodlights are now finished. It makes a big noticeable difference when you're driving by a plaza or gas station and the light's properly directed at the parking lot instead of visible from 2 miles up the road.


BTW...anyone noticed the new LED fixtures that every single side street in Allston got this winter? Those things are really nice...perfect daylight-white, absolutely zero side glare (i.e. no lighting somebody's 2nd floor bedroom window), and only 39 watts vs. 175 or 250 like the ancient 1960's-era ones. Hope they move on to every neighborhood and alley because that'll save a crapload of maintenance labor not having to send a truck out to change bulbs anymore (LED's either slowly dim or lose a few dots to failure like a malfunctioning traffic light without going completely dark). Not to mention a lot less electricity.

I'm somewhat dumbfounded that Boston held on to its old-old mercury vapor fixtures while virtually 100% of the rest of the state had long retired them, and was still doing new installs of those toxic energy-wasters up to 2 years ago. They've also been cro-magnon about still doing ridiculously overrpowered 400-watt sodium fixtures with zero glare control on most thoroughfares. You can even tell the difference flying into Logan how much less upward glare there is from full-cutoff Cambridge vs. the glare from Boston streets. It's kind of disgusting. I hope they get around to converting all the main drags (sans the ones with decorative fixtures) to LED after they get the much higher quantity of side street fixtures done. I can't imagine trying to sleep on the 2nd or 3rd floor of a Mass Ave. apt. with a hideous glarebomb sitting a few feet outside the window so bright that not even blinds can block it. It's not just an efficiency issue it's a quality of life issue that screws up people's heads, animals' heads, and plant/tree growth and health in addition to making it harder to drive when more light's going sideways than hitting the road. It'd be nice if we took a progressive stand on that. Or at least beat NYC to the punch because they're gearing up for a mass LED rollout in a few years.
 
I love those super bright old-style lights they install.
 
"I'm somewhat dumbfounded that Boston held on to its old-old mercury vapor fixtures while virtually 100% of the rest of the state had long retired them, and was still doing new installs of those toxic energy-wasters up to 2 years ago."

The city had warehouses full of lighting fixtures to get rid off. It's standard inventory procedure to get the oldest stock out first.
 
I've begun noticing LED lighting installations in my neighborhood. I wonder if the city is running out of mercury.
 
http://bostinnovation.com/2011/07/26/boston-shines-with-brighter-lights-will-save-over-1-million-in-the-process/

"14,000 mercury-vapor street and roadway lights will be replaced with Phillips Hadco’s New RX1 and RX2 LED lights. The total estimated energy saved a year from the installation of the new LED lights is roughly 8.9 million kilowatt hours of energy. That translates to approximately $1.1 million of dollars saved for the city."

I if they are putting these new lights into the rotation, or if they are doing a mass-deployment of the new lights.
 
The new lights they installed along the Esplanade is a great improvement.

Are there any plans to fix the 93 lights south of the city?
 
toddr4fun said:
http://bostinnovation.com/2011/07/26/boston-shines-with-brighter-lights-will-save-over-1-million-in-the-process/

"14,000 mercury-vapor street and roadway lights will be replaced with Phillips Hadco’s New RX1 and RX2 LED lights. The total estimated energy saved a year from the installation of the new LED lights is roughly 8.9 million kilowatt hours of energy. That translates to approximately $1.1 million of dollars saved for the city."

I if they are putting these new lights into the rotation, or if they are doing a mass-deployment of the new lights.
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Allston was a mass deployment. No thoroughfares, though...I guess they aren't replacing anything higher-wattage yet. It's cheaper from a labor standpoint to do them all at once because it's one-and-done instead of having to send out the truck constantly and continuing to have to maintain dozens of different fixture makes. The labor savings over life of the fixture are almost as significant as the power savings.

The old fixtures usually have some resale value because you can take out the mercury ballast and replace with a sodium ballast to get a more efficient and less toxic fixture; it's actually cheaper to retrofit and re-use in some cases than buying a whole new fixture.
 
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