City crews are replacing many historic-looking pedestrian light poles downtown on Division St. The lights glow white, in contrast to the orange color of the light poles installed last year on the Water St. parking lot and Sesquicentennial Legacy Plaza. I know zilch about street lighting and even less about smart streetlights but in this week’s Friday Memo, TJ Heinricy, Supervisor of Northfield’s Streets & Parks Department, writes: (continued)
Ongoing work in the downtown area this week included the retrofitting of the pedestrian light poles. This project, which includes the change out of globed lights to a more traditional style fixture and energy efficient transformer and light will be completed in the next several of week. [sic]
I wonder which style creates less ambient light?
Well, they look nice. They don’t appear to be LED from the picture, which is a disappointment, but at least it (apparently) improved the energy efficiency somewhat.
Half or more of the lights on the new pedestrian light poles downtown on Divison St. have been off the past two mornings at 6 am.
I’ve filled out the ‘Tell the City’ form at:
http://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/tellthecity
re: streetlights.
While the new poles and the fixture atop them look more traditional in style (that’s good) the quality of the light dispersed is dismal (I think). “Dispersed” is a key word here . My view is the new lights have a less than comfortable color temperature and they give off little light on the sidewalk or in fact in illuminating the front of the DT buildings. I’d like to see something reminiscent in “LOOK” of 19 century England, but at the same time lighting up our DT so that there seems some sense of “welcome” to the area. On the other hand, City Admin. Walinski commented to me that many citizens have expressed dismay (and I think dissatisfaction) at how BRIGHT the new lights have made the DT.
This may be fact or “staff spin” to deflect a complaint.
In short, (IMHO) the “lantern” style might have worked if new lighting technology had provide a focused light pattern on the sidewalks and the DT building’s frontside walls of the DT and at the same time contributed to the historic ambiance of the DT … and kept the night sky dim.
I did hear back (a week ago) from T.J. Heinricy, City of Northfield Street/Park Supervisor: