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Mostly Cloudy LED lighting comes to Lawrence
To save money and maintenance time, the Village of Lawrence replaced its high-pressure sodium light bulbs used in the streetlights with LED lighting. Roughly 790 square streetlights in the village, known as carriage or coach fixtures have been or are in the process of being outfitted with the new bulbs.
LED lights will cost the village about half as much to operate as the high-pressure sodium ones. High-pressure sodium lights give off a yellow-tinted light while LEDs emit a whiter light that’s more akin to natural moonlight.
Mayor Alex Edelman said replacing lights cost less than $65,000, and did additional work. “We also added 28 new lights and trimmed some trees around others where we have received complaints from residents about it being too dark,” he said.
In late July, the village began replacing the high-pressure sodium light bulbs. According to Gerry Castro, the deputy village administrator the change was implemented to save money and effort in the long run. “High-pressure sodium lights work well,” he said, “but they need more maintenance and have to be replaced more often [than LED lights].”
However, not everyone is pleased with the change. In a Facebook post resident Mark Boat said, “Recently, they replaced the street level lights with LED bulbs which do not light the streets as bright as the old incandescent ones did. The Village’s contractor did not use the proper bulbs that would have either maintained or increased the range of lighting from the individual fixtures.”
Arthur Valenti, another resident agreed. “It’s been much darker since they’ve changed it,” he said. “It may be bright right under the light but it’s much darker around the peripheries.”
The village says that they have yet to receive any official complaints about the lighting, and most Lawrence residents who were asked were either ambivalent to or unaware of the changes. After the village completes replacing all the lights, officials said they will follow up to see if they need to make any more adjustments, which according to Edelman should be in about a week.
Whether there are complaints or not, the mayor said that the lighting was outdated and needed to be overhauled. “The truth of the matter is those lights hadn’t been changed in who knows how many years” Edelman said.
