Here's a Caltrans owned light pole at a surface street intersection with a freeway ramp right by CA 134 in Glendale. The fixture's slipfitter was still on the arm. The breakaway slip base was still attached to the 4 bolt pole base.
I LIKE breakaway poles. xD Mostly because when someone crashes into it and I spot them, More streetlight stuff for me! Sometimes you will find an in-tact ballast, maybe an in-tact fixture! You never know.
Hmm. I never knewe those transformer base poles were also break-a-ways.... I've seen those used in Connecticut and Massachusetts. RI uses the regular break-a-way poles. THe break-a-ways are only useful if the poles get reinstalled. RIDOT doesn't do that all the time. so when a pole gets knocked over, it'll somtimes stay like. eventually a good portion of the poles are gone or on the side of the road. You can imagine seeing a bunch of missign poles makes puttign up te poles in the first place pointless. I guess now that you've discussed all the goor things about breakaways, I do liek them, just not the fact that the dissapear too easy around here and don't get replaced quicly at all, leavign the road dark. I guess they do more good than harm though......
In here most poles are put back up...some had to be replaced...funny thing is sometimes if they are put back up..sometimes they are in perfect condition....sometimes they are put back with the arm just slightly bowing upward a bit higher than used to...I know of 2 near me and I will take pic...
The pole where I found the 125 parts.. Is STILL not put back up! Also there was a pole in Evergreen.. Close to downtown that got knocked down, the guard rail got knocked down too.
They fixed the GUARD RAIL.. But the pole is still how it is. The Fixture was long gone though. But the lights in that area aren't even maintained anyway, All of the lights are either cycling, not working, or dim. Come on... MAINTAIN THE FIXTURES!
Other poles like on I-70 a couple were knocked down a while ago but never put back up. Not yet anyway. Looks like CDOT has some problems.
Well report the lights that are out! That way they will know the lights are out. We can't use breakaway bases here anyways since almost all pole are concrete, which are better than metal poles in my opinion.
They have already been to the places, the lights were taken. Plus where I found the 125 the pole had a thing on it saying "Xcel energy was here" But they didn't take the light.
There also is a light on a freeway owned by Xcel that the AE Luxmaster fell off YEARS AND YEARS AGO, and the light is still missing off the pole, Just the slipfitter remains. And they put a new light up across the street. How wonderful.
One light at the end of Rte. 37 near me was out since before I moved in the area in 2003 and was out until it was hit early this fall. Every time they did a relamp, that light never got a new lamp. Now the pole has been laying on the ground on the side of the road ever since with no light.
I wonder if it had a bad wiring, as known as a ground fault.....I noticed it is FAR away from the rest of the fixtures so it COULD have had a bad wiring and they never got to fix it.....
If ALL of you lived in RI you would think some what like streetlight98, We get snow in RI and a lot of it! So what do you think happends when the cars tap the light. I like the breakaway bases but In RI you need to have a lot of gard rails!
The plows are no help either. When the giant plow goes by and dumps all that compact snow over the side of the road, those poles fall like dominoes. If the snow gets pushed at the right angle and hard enough it shears the breakaway bolts. Even though the light and pole aren't generally harmed with snow, the lihght is at least replaced somtimes the pole too.
Hmm, I don't see this problem in Ontario a lot even back when we mostly used cobraheads to lights freeways. Over here the snow is often plowed to the right hand side of the road too.
@ Joe; yeah we have our snow plowed onto the right too, where newer lights are isntalled. Part of the issue could be that NGrid gets the lowest bid on breakaway systems. This isn't a problem with brand new isntallations, just old poles that were "converted" to break away with kits when the USDOT or whatever mandated that all poles not guarded by a railing must be break away.
@ Brian; yeah i know RIDOT should install more guard rails. Often, the only reason a guardrail exists is because an accident happened there.
They use breakaway bases on the freeway lights here. It used to bother me seeing smashed lights by the side of the road but now that everything has been changed out to LED it doesn't bother me anymore. However, they actually use the breakaway poles in some neighborhoods and urban areas here, which seems kind of dangerous because a pole could fall on someone or damage property. Plus, it doesn't help how easily broken the poles are. It's not uncommon to see quite a few poles knocked down after a storm. I can understand the breakaway poles on the freeway, but in urban areas where there are buildings only about 6' away from the poles as well as lots of people around it seems kind of stupid.
The USDOT/FHWA or whatever federal entity is in charge of the freeway engineering requires breakaway bases for freeway light poles. I've seen RIDOT use breakway bases on regular roads too and it is stupid. Any time there are pedestrians or buildings around the poles shouldn't be breakaway.
Just for the peace of mind of all the people who jumped down my throat back in 2011... I do respect the multitude of uses for breakaway bases. Mainly that they save the concrete foundation. RIDOT and NGrid use aluminum poles so those are inherently "breakaway" as opposed to steel poles, which are much stronger. When you hit an aluminum pole at 70 MPH it will probably leave a mark but often times the pole fails at the base weld or outright shears at the location of impact. I've seen this on jersey barrier-mounted freeway poles that somehow manage to get hit. Those are not breakaway since the odds of being hit are low and the breakaway couplings (upon research) are apparently designed to fall in the opposite direction of impact, which in the case of a median mounted pole, would be the other side of the freeway. So they're not used. But the pole falls anyway lol. RIDOT doesn't spot replace poles. They'll go around once every 5-10 YEARS and replace missing poles, provided the anchor bolts haven't rusted away to nothing in that time lol. NGrid does pretty much the same thing on freeways, except they will usually only replace a couple of poles and leave the rest missing. NGrid puts minimal resources into maintaining the freeway lighting lol. RIDOT was pretty good about relamping before they went LED but RIDOT is horrible with wiring faults. There are quite a few older sections of lights that are out at night. Long strings.
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They fixed the GUARD RAIL.. But the pole is still how it is. The Fixture was long gone though. But the lights in that area aren't even maintained anyway, All of the lights are either cycling, not working, or dim. Come on... MAINTAIN THE FIXTURES!
Other poles like on I-70 a couple were knocked down a while ago but never put back up. Not yet anyway. Looks like CDOT has some problems.
There also is a light on a freeway owned by Xcel that the AE Luxmaster fell off YEARS AND YEARS AGO, and the light is still missing off the pole, Just the slipfitter remains. And they put a new light up across the street. How wonderful.
@ Brian; yeah i know RIDOT should install more guard rails. Often, the only reason a guardrail exists is because an accident happened there.
Just for the peace of mind of all the people who jumped down my throat back in 2011... I do respect the multitude of uses for breakaway bases. Mainly that they save the concrete foundation. RIDOT and NGrid use aluminum poles so those are inherently "breakaway" as opposed to steel poles, which are much stronger. When you hit an aluminum pole at 70 MPH it will probably leave a mark but often times the pole fails at the base weld or outright shears at the location of impact. I've seen this on jersey barrier-mounted freeway poles that somehow manage to get hit. Those are not breakaway since the odds of being hit are low and the breakaway couplings (upon research) are apparently designed to fall in the opposite direction of impact, which in the case of a median mounted pole, would be the other side of the freeway. So they're not used. But the pole falls anyway lol. RIDOT doesn't spot replace poles. They'll go around once every 5-10 YEARS and replace missing poles, provided the anchor bolts haven't rusted away to nothing in that time lol. NGrid does pretty much the same thing on freeways, except they will usually only replace a couple of poles and leave the rest missing. NGrid puts minimal resources into maintaining the freeway lighting lol. RIDOT was pretty good about relamping before they went LED but RIDOT is horrible with wiring faults. There are quite a few older sections of lights that are out at night. Long strings.