r/decadeology • u/Emeraldsinger • Jul 25 '26

Discussion 💭🗯️ Approximately when did the U.S. move away from this kind of lighting in its cities?

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I was alive and aware for the transition. But I can’t really pinpoint a year or range of when this change actually occurred. Does anyone else know? And does it depend on the state? I’m specifically looking for Wisconsin based answers if anyone maybe knows that as well. Thank you.

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295

u/astrid_autumn Jul 25 '26

same, these lights were such a vibe. i hate the LEDs

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u/GeekFish Jul 25 '26

The sad thing is they can recreate this color with LEDs. They usually just think LED has to equal pure white.

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u/booksandotherstuff Jul 25 '26

It's because the white lights help with visibility and safety. Our city finally installed them about three years ago. Collisions, particularly of pedestrians, went down 60% in one year.

I understand the nostalgia aspect of it. But as a ER nurse whose had to see people (particularly children) die due to collisions, I'm 100% for it.

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u/cattycaker Jul 26 '26

Actually studies have shown that the white light bulbs do not make it more safe and may even make the area lit up more susceptible to crime. It definitely harms driver visibility.

https://www.bigbenddarkskyreserve.org/safetysecuritylighting

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u/Willing-Ad6598 Jul 28 '26

This should be seen by more people. I read a similar report from my local government in Australia.

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u/cinnam0nrollss Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 22 '26

It also just creates a lot of light pollution. Makes it harder to sleep, messes with our circadian rhythms and much more so wildlife. Plus you can’t see the pretty stars on a clear night :( I didn’t know about the conflicting ideas between collision statistics, that’s really interesting.

What guaranteed is already increasing collisions is the ridiculous trend of insanely bright LEDs on newer vehicles. Most of the time they’re nearly as bright as my own high beams. Once beamed someone at a stoplight trying to let them know their high beams are on (they were not) and they quickly flashed theirs back at me. I felt like I got flash-bombed. It was actually painful in my eyes and I had to look down and keep blinking to regain proper focus, which still took at least a full minute to actually go back to normal…

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u/TheIronSoldier2 Jul 30 '26

That's not what those articles say. They say that too much light is a bad thing, but the examples that they give of what good lighting is is very clearly still white lighting. Warm white, but still a far cry from the amber light given by the high pressure sodium lamps.

Maybe actually read the study.

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u/GeekFish Jul 25 '26

The children yearn for the warmth.

Seriously though, they could just turn up the lumens and give us the orange glow. 🥲

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u/booksandotherstuff Jul 25 '26

That wouldn't help with visibility, unfortunately. The only downside to the bright white light, safety wise, is it doesn't do well in fog and snow. So I'd say that a more warm white instead of a amber color would be best for most communities.

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u/gthomps83 Jul 26 '26

This is why France used yellow headlights until the 1990s. Selective Yellow was better at both cutting through inclement weather and at contrast. They can’t throw light as far, but they are safer in terms of visibility.

France gave them up because the EU rules standardized everything, despite being better in most ways.

I put selective yellow bulbs in my last car and loved them.

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u/Scorpioking1114 Jul 26 '26

EU rules seem overbearing! Where is the sovereignty of France if Brussels is going as far as deciding what color LED bulbs should be installed?

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u/_Dadodo_ Jul 26 '26

I’ve heard of a few more progressive (not in the political sense, just more responsive/pro-active in people’s opinions/complaints) cities changing the light color to be more of a warm white/amber LED color on local neighborhoods roadways while still keeping the white LEDs on higher speed and higher trafficked roads for that safety reason.

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u/lovelyindividuals Jul 29 '26

Give us orange lamps in the parks

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u/AJRobertsOBR Jul 25 '26

The eye picks up blue light better. When you add more blue you get whiter light. So simply upping the wattage on 2000k won’t help.

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u/NutBusster69 Jul 26 '26

Ahh I see. More watt doesn't help yellow light visibility. We need more blue in the yellow lights then to please everyone

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u/cattycaker Jul 26 '26

No, it’s the opposite.

“Glare is also related to the color of the light. The more white or blue the light is, the more discomforting glare it causes.”

“Our eyes naturally adjust to ambient light levels. Overly bright lighting forces our eyes to become less sensitive, meaning lighting past a certain level doesn’t help with visibility but can actually put you at a disadvantage.”

https://www.bigbenddarkskyreserve.org/safetysecuritylighting

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u/Reboot42069 Jul 29 '26

That's not the issue, your eyes aren't as sensitive to this yellow wavelength at night, they're more tuned towards blues and whites as you rely more on rod cells and less on cones. Which to make a long story short means that yellow in the picture stimulates your eyes less no matter how many lumens your giving it

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u/Scorpioking1114 Jul 26 '26

Harder for the flock cameras to pick up on ppls faces in this kind of lighting. Guessing that’s why we don’t have this lighting anymore

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u/MattCW1701 Jul 27 '26

At night, flock uses infrared, the type of ambient lighting doesn't matter.

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u/SquarePixel Jul 25 '26

But what about the mental wellbeing of the community. ;)

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u/neonninja304 Jul 26 '26

Still about the same in fog though. Now instead of disappearing in a creepy orange glow you dissappear in a blinding white one lol

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u/booksandotherstuff Jul 26 '26

Yeah, that's why I think warm white light, instead of amber or bright white, is best safety wise. But many cities won't do that because the bright LED streetlights are major energy savers. So all we can do is be extra cautious and aware during poor weather conditions.

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u/zscherme Jul 26 '26

That's amazing! Do you by chance have a reference I can read for that?

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u/booksandotherstuff Jul 26 '26

Thus far there hasn't been any official study in the increase or decrease of collision on roads with LED lighting. But, based on what I've observed every day in the ER, I'm willing to bet the numbers are favorable.

I'm quoting the number that one of my colleagues at work shared with me. He might not be accurate, unfortunately. But having been part of the ER for seven years, I can say, I've seen a huge difference of accident and fatalities.

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u/zscherme Jul 26 '26

My mom was an ER nurse so I have huge respect for the work that you do and the literal and figurative trauma you deal with everyday. I say this sincerely, thank you.

Re the lighting, I trust you and your colleagues and I'm pretty excited about the research that is most likely in work. Things don't always have to be nostalgic for the sake of being nostalgic.

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u/Only_A_Fool_In_April Jul 27 '26

My mother was an ER nurse and then became a supervisor. She'd also often have insights like these about things going on around town before it was covered by the local news. Skeptical at first we'd ask her source, "Nurses talk. We know things." Lol.

Not the clean source we could use in a school paper but she and her colleagues certainly had their fingers on the pulse of the city. She was at the only Level 1 Trauma Center in the area. During the '90s when New Orleans was the "murder capital" of the country, Charity hospital was your best bet at surviving.

Things have improved drastically and the city is safer than ever, come down and visit us. But maybe wait until September when it's not oppressively hot; fall and spring are the best times to visit the city IMO.

New Orleans homicides hit 50-year low

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u/goldenroman Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26

What is the source of these stats? Because to my knowledge, that would be one of the largest and most distinct safety impacts of a lighting retrofit recorded, well above anything ever published in the space.

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u/nickHuckabee Jul 26 '26

mane...fuck the kids....I want nostalgia

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u/14ktgoldscw Jul 26 '26

Yeah, if you aren’t trying to take artsy photos or trying to make a neo-noir movie the new lights are objectively better by every metric.

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u/goldenroman Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

White LEDs are not better by every metric. This is my area of study. Studies have shown (regardless of other urban factors) that exposure to bluer light at night is associated with poorer sleep, (which is associated with too many issues to name). LEDs are often far glarier, with the higher intensity per area already being associated with issues like macular degeneration. Blue light also decreases the visibility of the night sky near cities (i.e. for the vast majority of people) and the broader spectrum emitted by LEDs is impossible to filter out for astronomical purposes (in contrast to HPS or LPS).

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u/broadwhim Jul 28 '26

i’m about to crash every time i drive when the power of the sun blinds me from the cars behind me, for streetlights i get, but can we please stop with LEDs on cars they’re so fucking bright

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u/1776FreeAmerica Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 28 '26

Yellow is the better color for contrast in low-conditions. It's probably other factors, or a increased lumen output. Blue light, might help a touch with driver alertness, but at cost of increased eye strain. You'll feel like you see better with white light, and it's true for color definition, but you'll actually see more overall at night with yellow.

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u/Blizzardof1991 Jul 29 '26

Not to mention we can see the stars now and it's cheaper

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u/the_Q_spice Jul 27 '26

This is actually a great example of multicollinearity.

There are actually 0 engineering studies to support this.

The issue is that cities have also been implementing more pedestrian safety measures, which have far more impact than lighting.

Matter of fact, there are actually multiple studies (as well as human biology) suggesting that white lights at night are significantly less safe.

The main reason is because amber lights allow us to maintain more of our night vision and high contrast sensitivity of our rod cells. White LEDs let us see colors better… and that’s about it. In large part, they are only installed for the reason of public safety - being police departments requesting them because people want to feel safer from potential crimes at night. It has basically nothing to do with roadway safety.

There’s a reason airports go totally dark at night and don’t use area lighting at all: they tried at one point - a lot of ground crews ended up injured or killed.

Harsh area lighting kills your depth perception, ability to sense movement, and contrast sensitivity. These three things also just so happen to be tied stronger to faster reacting parts of our brains (amygdala).

That all aside; they also cause serious health issues.

Ever since my city installed them, my eyesight has gone from being stable for over 10 years to increasingly bad astigmatism. The other drivers I work with (about 100) are the same. We practically all wear glasses now, and our eye doctors are seeing the same pattern across the entire city.

They also severely fuck with both our circadian rhythm and that of wildlife - leading to more human-wildlife interaction (crashes), and general health issues related to chronic sleep deprivation.

Colder light (4000-6000K) has also been proven to increase roadway fatalities in every instance of being installed.

Warmer light like those we used to have was really only supposed to be moved away from because the filaments used weren’t energy efficient. That is the only reason LEDs are being moved to.

https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/too-much-light-at-night-may-harm-health/

https://www.agcled.com/blog/are-led-streetlights-harmful.html

https://health.ec.europa.eu/scientific-committees/easy-read-summaries-scientific-opinions/are-led-lights-safe-human-health-2_en

https://darksky.org/resources/what-is-light-pollution/effects/safety/

Hell, the AMA even released guidelines advising against the use of white LEDs due to widespread public health and safety concerns.

https://www.facilitiesnet.com/lighting/tip/AMA-Some-Street-Lighting-LED-Options-Hazardous-to-Health--37391

Your own accreditation body disagrees with your opinion on this.

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u/inviciblestars Jul 29 '26

lol, if people can’t see good enough with the older lights they need to pay more attention when they’re driving and get glasses. One thing I know is that people are dumb af to drive, it’s not the lights…

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u/Revolutionary_Art919 Jul 26 '26

I was in Paris last fall and noticed a number of fixtures were LED but set to a yellow/orange color spectrum. I read somewhere that Paris considered the orange glow of sodium vapor lights to be a signature look so it's not surprising they'd use LEDs the same color. (Other streets in Paris were standard warm white LEDs).

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u/goldenroman Jul 26 '26

Have studied this a bit. France may be one of the only places on Earth where the transition to LEDs actually resulted in a substantial reduction in light pollution.

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u/seambizzle1 Jul 25 '26

No it’s just that LED is much brighter. Which is the point of street lights

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u/GeekFish Jul 25 '26

Brightness does not equal color temperature.

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u/toochaos Jul 28 '26

No but white is superior for being able to not hit shit at night. And since thats literally the only purpose of street lights they should be white. 

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u/cattycaker Jul 26 '26

This! I’ve tried so much to get legislators in my area to do something.

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u/Lazypilot306 Jul 26 '26

I heard that it made people more prone to violence. I remember really old blue ones in the mid 80s they were super nice compared to these.