The reddish-yellow glow of high-pressure sodium street lights is giving way to more efficient light-emitting diode light in Nanaimo.
According to a city press release, Nanaimo has both city-owned and B.C. Hydro-owned streetlights that are leased to the city. Nanaimo started upgrading to LED lights in 2018, but B.C. Hydro’s poles still have high-pressure sodium lights.
B.C. Hydro is now replacing the older, less-efficient lights with LED technology as part of a provincewide streetlight upgrade plan, and crews are upgrading 4,276 lights in Nanaimo neighbourhoods.
LED lighting comes in a variety of colour temperatures and brightness levels and B.C. Hydro is working with the city to match the colour, brightness and spread of each current light. Safety and flooding of light toward homes, will be taken into consideration, noted the press release, and appropriate adjustments will be made for each neighbourhood.
The street-lighting upgrade work will be carried out from the beginning of August until the end of the year.
“The best LED lighting will really go unnoticed; not too bright, not too dark, not too warm and not too cool,” said Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog in the press release. “If Goldilocks can walk our neighbourhood streets on a winter’s evening and doesn’t question the lighting, then along with B.C. Hydro, we got it right.”
Lights leased by the city from B.C. Hydro were for neighbourhoods originally designed prior to current expectations of street lighting design and some of those neighbourhoods started as rural streets, but have since evolved into urban environments, the city noted.
“These new street lights will help improve public safety in the community by increasing the visibility of sidewalks and roads at night, as well as help reduce light pollution. LEDs also last longer and require less maintenance,” said Scott Petrie, B.C. Hydro LED street lighting program manager, in the release.
For more information on B.C. Hydro’s street light replacement program, visit www.bchydro.com. For information about the city’s street light conversion project, visit www.nanaimo.ca/your-government/projects/projects-detail/led-streetlights.
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