LED Streetlights Coming To New York City (photo: OVI, Inc.)
Los Angeles is turning to LED streetlights, and now New York City streetlights are moving into the 21st century. Lighting design firm Office for Visual Interaction, Inc. recently won New York’s City Light Design Competition to create a replacement for the ubiquitous “cobra-head” streetlamps found throughout the city, and their LED fixtures will begin appearing this spring.
New York City To Get LED Streetlights (photo: OVI, Inc.)
OVI has partnered with manufacturer Lighting Science Group to produce the LED light fixtures. The sleek and elegant design is made possible by the compact size of the LEDs themselves, and aims to remove much of the visual clutter of traditional streetlights, as well as to improve the quality of the lighting. In addition, directional lenses will allow multiple light arrays on each fixture – for example, one lamppost could focus illumination on a crosswalk as well as lighting the surrounding sidewalk.
Directional Arrays On New York City's LED Streetlights (photo: OVI, Inc.)
The high-flux LEDs used in the fixtures have a projected lifespan of 50,000 hours, so maintenance requirements should be dramatically reduced. And energy savings should be substantial as well: the LED lights will require roughly 25% less power than the 150-watt high pressure sodium lamps currently in use.
LED streetlights installed during trials this spring will serve as a test for applying the fixtures on a widespread basis. New York City’s 300,000 streetlamps won’t be transformed overnight – but the high-tech streetlights are, well, just around the corner.
(via Office for Visual Interaction, Inc. & Lighting Science Group)
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Looks like LED bulbs are finally making their way up the poles from Don’t Walk signs and traffic signals to streetlights. It’s about time! And the color temperature and quality of LEDs will surely be an improvement on the yellowy sodium lights of the present.