At the Markham-Toronto border the streetlights transition from LED to HPS. Note the Markham owned LED on the cross street, while the street I'm facing down is owned by Toronto which is still HPS.
Nice comparison! The LEDs actually look the same brightness as the HPS! Maybe a tad dimmer but much easier to see under them since its white light. I saw some induction in the New Jersey/Maryland area and LEDs in North Carolina but Florida is pretty much 100% HPS. I saw mercs in almost every state except Florida. Not a single MV. Not even privately owned. Well, I haven't seen one yet. Mostly all HPS, though businesses and stuff use MH. Are the LEDs that blue in person?
What LED model is this one?
And I'm pretty sure the intersection's signals should be owned by one city (looks like toronto's), yet Markham put their LED on Toronto's signal pole here!
Also, you note this Toronto street is mostly HPS, what else do they use on this stretch?
Thanks! Yeah I think they used 6500K fixtures when they did the arterial road changeout. I kinda like the bluish light , it reminds me of the mercury era when clear mercs were used for streetlighting. The fixtures used on residential streets were 4000K instead so those look more like MH lamps.
Ha, along Steeles, the signals are owned by Toronto but for some reason every signal pole on the north side got a Markham LED. It would be funny if Toronto Hydro came by and replaced with them with HPS fixtures. They also randomly slapped LED fixtures on signal poles owned by the MTO and York Region too but most of those have been kept as HPS.
The name of the LED fixtures used escapes me at the moment but it looks like this but longer.
Yeah I believe there's a street that branches off to a office building that has some MH, I'll have to check that street again at night.
Albion Rd and Steeles is probably the oddest intersection I know, They used to use Vaughan Brampton and Toronto there. Then it seemed to be Toronto and Brampton setups. Now I think toronto is just being in charge of replacing signals and lights.
Great comparison! Everywhere I've been in Alaska is all either HPS, LED, or induction. No mercury here unless it's a privately-owned yardlight it seems. (Although those are still somewhat common).
So I found a contract document regarding the original LED refit in Markham. Apparently this road (Steeles) will stay HPS because the City of Toronto owns and services the lights on the south side (left) and they are not doing a system-wide LED refit in the time being.
Ah it makes sense to me. It would definitely be a problem to convert one side of the street, York can't go and retrofit Toronto's lights anyways. Guess we wont see LED on steeles until Toronto decides to convert to LED. There was another reference with the new HPS lights on Hwy 7 as part of a transit project wont be converted anytime soon.
Hmm interesting. There's a road here called Plainfield Pike (RI Rte 14) that runs along the Cranston/Johnston line for a few miles and there were some discrepancies over which lights were Cranston's and which were Johnston's. Currently Johnston's lights are still NGrid owned (thus HPS) while Cranston went LED. Cranston LED'ed all the 250W HPS lights on the Johnston side of the street and left the 50 and 100W lights HPS alone and LEDed all of the lights on the Cranston side (which were all 250W). So driving down Plainfield Pike starting in Providence it's 250W= 4000K Cree LEDs, then you get into Johnston and it's all HPS (mix of 250W and 50/100W), then you get onto the part that's on the Cranston-Johnston line with Cranston dominance and it's all 250W= 3000K AEL LEDs, then you get to the part on the Cranston-Johnston line with Johnston dominance and it's a mix of low-watt HPS and 250W= 3000K AEL LEDs. Then you get back into the plain-old-Johnston part which is all low-watt HPS. Lots of eye adjusting driving on that road lol.
Around here, for years the state owned highways still had HPS, whereas the city-owned streets in Fairbanks proper had LED, some have been LED for almost a decade apparently, on pretty neat vintage arms as well. Lately though the state has been playing with LED. The four-lane Steese Highway leavingt Fairbanks now has LED glare bombs, I've seen them from one of the interchanges. Fellow LG/GOL member Icefoglights lives up there and reports they are nasty glare bombs driving that section of freeway at night. However, two other freeways, the Johanssen and Robert Mitchell Expressways, are still HPS. I don't know about the four-lane Richardson Highway between Fairbanks and North Pole but I think it's still HPS.
University Ave, the dividing line between College, AK and Fairbanks, AK, is still HPS.
What brand of LEDs is the state using? Those GE Evolves are pretty glary. The round AEL Autobahns can be glary at certain angles as well but I've found that they outperform the other brands of LEDs used here photometrically (the other lights being LeoTek GreenCobras and Cree XSPR's). Only problem I have is Cranston used WAY too low of wattages on the AELs here. The other LED cities in RI are much better lit. A town called North Smithfield switched to 39W Cree LEDs to replace nearly exclusive 70W HPS M-250R2 FCOs (and some AE 113 FCOs and newer drop lens OVZ and M-250R2 spot replacements). A rule of thumb for LEDs is that they're about 100LPW, so that's almost 4000L from a 39W LED, which is less than the 6300L of 70W HPS but it's exactly on par with the original 100W MV lights so in my book it's a perfect match.
Cranston used 20W (2000L) LEDs to replace 50W HPS (so the LEDs are only half as bright as the original 100W MV) and 40W LED to replace 100W HPS (which is actually more suitable for 100W MV replacement). And Even the 250W HPS lights are only replaced by 70W LED, which is about as bright as a 175W MV, making them a good replacement for 100W HPS.
I believe some of the ones I've seen on the side streets in Fairbanks proper (much of what many people would call 'Fairbanks' is just borough (Alaska's equivalent of county) land or other unincorporated communities/Census Designated Places, i.e the census would call it a town and it has a name but when you call 911 you get the state troopers instead of the police for instance) do use GE Evolves, and I think LeoTek? I'm not sure honestly. They've held up well all things considered, some have been there since 2008 I guess and are still working. I imagine maybe our extreme cold winter temperatures (last winter it hit -75 in North Pole I just heard recently) help the electronic drivers not overheat, and when we do get 100F it's when the lights aren't on?
A few years ago this was a discrepancy over who should pay for resurfacing Steeles. For a long time, Steeles was notoriously poorly maintained since neither Toronto or Markham wanted to pay for the resurfacing. Finally, the province gave them a grant to resurface the road.
Even in Markham, a lot of the lights on signal poles are still HPS to this day. Toronto is still HID outside of a few LED test installs and the MTO seems to have switched to LED for new installs and are testing some LED refits for the highmasts. Still mostly HPS though.
Mississauga -> Brampton looks weird and like this sort of on some roads. It will be all LED then all of a sudden its HPS all the way up.
I find that they have a blue tinge to them, but generally they aren't this blue.
And I'm pretty sure the intersection's signals should be owned by one city (looks like toronto's), yet Markham put their LED on Toronto's signal pole here!
Also, you note this Toronto street is mostly HPS, what else do they use on this stretch?
Ha, along Steeles, the signals are owned by Toronto but for some reason every signal pole on the north side got a Markham LED. It would be funny if Toronto Hydro came by and replaced with them with HPS fixtures. They also randomly slapped LED fixtures on signal poles owned by the MTO and York Region too but most of those have been kept as HPS.
The name of the LED fixtures used escapes me at the moment but it looks like this but longer.
Yeah I believe there's a street that branches off to a office building that has some MH, I'll have to check that street again at night.
University Ave, the dividing line between College, AK and Fairbanks, AK, is still HPS.
Cranston used 20W (2000L) LEDs to replace 50W HPS (so the LEDs are only half as bright as the original 100W MV) and 40W LED to replace 100W HPS (which is actually more suitable for 100W MV replacement). And Even the 250W HPS lights are only replaced by 70W LED, which is about as bright as a 175W MV, making them a good replacement for 100W HPS.
Even in Markham, a lot of the lights on signal poles are still HPS to this day. Toronto is still HID outside of a few LED test installs and the MTO seems to have switched to LED for new installs and are testing some LED refits for the highmasts. Still mostly HPS though.