Streetlights in Ontario...Back in the Day.

[joe_347V]

Here's an example of the davit poles that succeeded the double guys and clamshells for freeway lighting during the 1960s.

 This design was short lived though with the truss poles being adopted by the late 60s.

[Mike]

Those davits are nice with interesting lights on them. The davits at Rocky Point Park in warwick have 400w OV15, M-400, M-400 slpit door, 1 M-400R2, and 1 OV25. That calls for an interesting bunch........ There are lots of M-400 and OV25 on wood poles that are slowly falling down and 1 model 25 on a wood pole over a dumpster in the park. Yuo can see one bit of the pole at all due to thick vines and trees, but the light along with it's smashed glass lens and part of tha mast are visible. There's a big nest in there too. The power's been long cut off, so it think it's still OK.

[joe_347V]

By the late 60s the davit design was getting less popular and the truss design was getting widely used. The older truss poles were concrete. These concrete truss poles would have originally carried B2215/B2213s (later switching to B2255/B2228s) had was used roughly from the late 60s to the early-mid 80s.
 

[Mike]

I'm a bit rusty on what was used here, but when the cobraheads rolled out, they seemed to alter between aluminum truss/tapered E arms on anchor base aluminum poles and aluminum davits on anchor base poles for new installations depending on what they had. When they chose davits, all the poles were davits and when they chose trusses/tapered Es, there were no davitas mixed in (Except for spot replacements however).

[joe_347V]

After the mid 80s the concrete poles was replaced with steel poles, here's my best guess as to why:

Improvements to freeway design standards during that time meant that the old concrete poles were no longer feasible for freeways. One of these improvements was the use of concrete jersey barriers instead of the twin W beam (see above) as the standard median barrier. The design of the jersey barrier meant the the old concrete poles were hard to install in the median.

Another was the fact that making a breakaway concrete pole was hard and even if it was breakaway the high mass of a concrete pole meant that pole knocks often did a lot of damage.   

Here's what a steel truss pole looks like, they were widely used from the early-mid 80s to the early-mid 90s although some have popped up from time to time.

[Mike]

I know in some places in mass, when the jersey barriers were installed, they made the barriers go around the pole so the pole was potected from vehicles and they didn't have to alter the poles. In the days of the steel guard rail in RI, the light poles were mounted on the sides of the road versus the median. After the jersey barriers became more popular here, lights were installed both in the median and sides depending on the area. Now, all new installations have the poles mounted on the sides instead of the median thoguh.

[joe_347V]

The newer concrete barriers a a bit taller and have a different pole base on them. They use special poles with a elongated base. The older jersey barriers had a cutout for the pole and used poles with standard square bases. 

[Mike]

The jersey barriers here have a cut-out as well. The ones here seem to ahve been casted with the cutout. The bases are standard here.

[joe_347V]

The cutouts in ours is cast too you can tell them apart since they have expansion joints next to them.

Moving to the original topic of old Ontario streetlighting, here's a shot of some Powerlite B2213s firing up for the night.

[Mike]

  How I'd love to be there!

[joe_347V]

Check out the 70s era angled signage on the last pic.

Here's some LPS lights on the Gardiner, these were removed and replaced by 250w AEL 125s in May 2006ish.

[Mike]

Our big signs overhead face down a few degrees as well so the motorist can see the sign more clearly.

[joe_347V]

Our big signs overhead face down a few degrees as well so the motorist can see the sign more clearly.

Not that note that the sign had a angled cut on them to indicate to the driver which direction was the exit.

[Mike]

Ahh. We've always stuck to the basics here. At one point RI was a state of all clamshells and mercury cobraheads. The late 80's- early 90's was a horrible era for those mercs....

[joe_347V]

Here's some mercury B2255s which was replaced with HPS cobras and now with highmast lights.