Yeah Birmingham is a Little Too Careless with these High Wattage Lights...they Seriously have 400 and 1000 Watt HPS Fixtures on little Quiet Low traffic Roads...and in the Downtown Area much smaller 250 or even 150 Watt Units would Suffice...and it would certainly save a great a great deal of wasted energy.
Sometimes they use high wattage because of pedestrian crossways and crime and safety....Downtown Baltimore is full of 1000 watt HPS and 400 watt HPS...
i Think Crime and Saftey Could be the motive here...prehaps Pedestrian too since most intersections in Downtown birmingham had countdown Pedestrian Signals.
Demand For 1000 Watt Cobraheads doesnt seem to be Very High....that Could be Why....Cooper OVL's and AEL 327's are uncommonly seen (to me) so i think 1000 Watt Cobraheads are Low in Demand overall,but they are still used....i saw alot in Birmingham.
There's some 400W HPS fixtures installed at a couple intersections here on some arterial roads, it sure is pretty bright at night with them. I've only seen 1000W HPS used on highway highmast fixtures here.
Birmingham seems to have Poor Maintenece of its Streetilghts...US-280 South going out of birmingham had Tons of 250 Watt MV M-400's and newer MV Fitures mixed with some HPS Replacements of the Same Wattage...shame to say the ones that Wernt Dayburning (which was Very Few) didnt Work at all...and Were Talking a good 2 Mile Stretch of Non Functioning Lights...downtown also had quite a Few Outages....they had a Few 1000 and 400 Watt MH Streetlights...but not as many as they had HPS...either way...Birmingham is a mess..