The American Medical Association (AMA) has just adopted an official policy statement about street lighting: cool it and dim it.
The statement, adopted unanimously at the AMA's annual meeting in Chicago on June 14, comes in response to the rise of new LED street lighting sweeping the country. An AMA committee issued guidelines on how communities can choose LED streetlights to "minimize potential harmful human health and environmental effects."
— CNN
There are two basic issues at hand. First, new, "white" LED lighting, which have a color temperature of between 4000K and 5000K, can cause discomfort and glare. This is because the light is concentrate and has high blue content, which can cause severe glare and force pupillary constriction. Second, these lights can impact human circadian rhythmicity, affecting our sleeping pattern. And, actually, it's not just human sleeping patterns at risk—wildlife migratory patterns are being disrupted as well.
4 Comments
Or, dingy brown light worked in caves so it will work on streets...
I always preferred sodium vapor anyway.
paging Donna Sink...
The color rendering for HPS and Metal Halide lamps is crap, and LED's can be directed with greater precision.
Furthermore, LED's can be made dimmable and color changing, so perhaps this isn't a question of lamp specification, but rather fixture design. If the lamps would change color temp over the course of the evening, a "second circadian" rhythm based on the night-time behaviors at the end of the day (homework, netflix, etc.). The downside would be the potential implied curfew; that after a certain color temperature you should not be on the streets.
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