I'd rather have bright lights on the street, and make residents provide their own window shades/blinds, etc. The same way we do it with the SUN!

The LED lights are being installed as part of an initiative to lower crime in New Haven, which 3 years ago was listed as the 4th most dangerous city in the U.S.

I am not requesting dimmer lights, but minimizing blue light, properly shielding lamps, and dimming lights during off-peak hours as the American Medical Association recommends. This will also increase the safety of pedestrians an motorists by reducing glare. I know many times I have hardly seen a pedestrian crossing the road because of the glare from streetlights.

LED street lights with a lower color temperature would be a big improvement, and I'm not aware of any drawbacks.

[Sorry for this lengthy note]

The relationship of street light and crime is an understandably sensitive issue especially in high crime neighborhoods. The Police and City like to repeat street lighting, and more so, house lighting by you, makes you safer [deferring cost to you], vs providing actual security to the homeowner [i.e the Hill district project]. Counter to everything we have been told, in part to sell lighting: Light and intensity [how bright] does not correlate to reducing crime. It turns out criminals don't like the dark either. Or wireless security systems. The Dark Skies group reports [among others, please see National Institute of Justice, below] on a study in Chicago to reduce crime by increased lighting and saw an increase, or no decrease: bright lights created darker shadows to hide in. In some neighborhoods street lighting is being removed [Seattle] or wattage reduced. San Francisco lighting is now referring to its newer standards as "moonlight", related to reduced intensity. Much of street light is wasted with 30% as sidelight glare - into your house instead of on the ground plan. If you can recover that lost energy you can then reduce the wattage for the same brightness. Everyone might sleep better. Please see:

https://www.ncjrs.gov/works/

http://www.darksky.org/lighting/lighting-basics/

http://www.darksky.org/lighting/policy-makers/

Does anyone know if New Haven is doing anything about this, or is it full steam ahead with bright blue LED? Let's get ahead of the trend in city lighting instead of playing catch-up.

This issue was reported more than 2 years ago, but there have been no comments posted by any employees of our city. This issue is being ignored.

Please call the Parking and Traffic Department and ask to speak to the deputy.

I agree that this is an important issue that affects almost everyone living in New Haven. LED's are great, and I'm all in favor of lower electricity consumption, but there's no reason not to also have proper shielding to reduce glare and good color temperature (<2700) to improve sleep and aesthetics, since LED's offer complete flexibility in this regard.

I would be delighted if as part of the review of cold LED lighting, the City required Yale to modify the bright blue safety lights on campus and in many adjacent areas. About two to three years back, Yale replaced dimmer blue bulbs that were reasonably unobtrusive with special designs with small mirrors that direct all the light straight into the eyes of pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. I consider their glare a traffic danger, and also an aesthetic problem. The area around the campus was beautiful at night, when all the illumination was in shades of orange and yellow. Now, the old trees and stately buildings are interrupted by clashing neon colors. Do the brighter blue lights deter crime more effectively than their less obtrusive predecessors? Do we need them at all at a time when we all walk around with smartphones, and when crime rates are far lower than when they were introduced?

We are closing this request due to its historic nature. If this concern still requires attention and you still believe SeeClickFix is a viable tool for its resolution the best way for it to be addressed is for you to create a new request including a current description of what is occurring and what solution you hope to see regarding this matter, citing/linking this request in the details. Thank you for your dedication to improving the quality of life in our community.