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NYC's New LED Street Lights Are Blinding, Depressing
By
Lauren Evans
Published Mar 23, 2015
Modified Mar 23, 2015
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CreativeNature R.Zwerver / Shutterstock
By
Lauren Evans
Published Mar 23, 2015
Modified Mar 23, 2015
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Windsor Terrace residents really really really don't like the new LED street lights illuminating their neighborhood, saying their blinding brightness makes them feel like they're in a prison yard, among other things.
“It feels like I’m in a strip mall in outer space,” one woman told the Times.
The bad news for the light-sensitive is that within two years, all 250,000 of the city's street lights will be converted to the new, more energy efficient bulbs, forever replacing the fuzzy yellow glow of old with a clinical blue glare that has some neighbors taping garbage bags over their windows. “They’re the heavy-duty kind,” one woman told the paper.
But what the lights lack in aesthetics, they more than make up for in environmental friendliness. Though the city is initially shelling out $75 million to swap out the bulbs, it will save $6 million on energy and $8 million on maintenance each year, thanks to lasting up to three times as long as old, sodium-vapor variety.
The city is looking into ways of tempering the aggressive glow, including filters and screens—or even just tilting them away from resident's front windows.
Tagged
energy efficiency
street lights
windsor terrace
Lauren Evans
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