Comment by Loic
1 day ago
Where I live, we have a small park, 500m away. You need to walk through it if you want to get to the city center from the small neighborhood we live in. To protect the wildlife, the lighting system has presence sensors, so as you walk or bicycle through the park, the way/street lighting turns on, you can walk, and just after you, it turns dark again. Really cool, especially the first time I went through it in the middle of the night.
Those things drive me nuts. There is a walking path that I frequent, and I can't use it at night because they are spaced every 20-30 feet. When I am not under them, they are off and my eyes adjust to the darkness and as I pass under one it flips to full daytime brightness and blinds me. As soon as I walk away from it, everything goes dark again, but my eyes had adjusted to the daytime brightness of the lamps. And I know that in 30 feet, I have to do it again, for the next couple of miles.
The timing and brightness is well adjusted, it feels natural, like a friendly ghost taking care of you.
unfortunately they never are. Brightness-adjusted, that is. Everyone installing lighting fixtures these days believes they must be daylight-level bright. The only ghosts you see are afterimages if you happen to look straight at the streetlamp ...
(I find it odd; dark-adapted eyes see a lot, including movement in shadows or low-contrast obstacles - after all, our bodies know how to see well at moonlight levels of illumination. Why are we so keen to kill this ability?)
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Your Park May Vary (YPMV).
Wouldn't it be more reasonable to just expect people who want to walk places in the dead of night to wear a headlamp? They're cheap, easy to recharge, and can be adjusted for various brightness levels.
The problem is not just with people who want to walk places, but people who want to mug/murder/rape those that do.
As an example, in the UK, councils are expected to light commonly-traveled paths, both so path users can see where they're going, and to reduce crime. Unlit paths in city parks are still traversed, and are often a haven for crime.
"Dead of night" isn't the right image. 5PM in winter with clouds (as is typical in the UK) has roughly the same level of natural light as 2AM. People are still coming home from work in conditions where natural light is low enough to lead to accidents and crime.
I hesitate to even engage in a conversation about organizing our entire infrastructure/society over such a rare incident, but I'll bite.
Powerful lights are known to actually increase safety risks. Our nightvision is reduced and the shadows of the lights are the most dangerous parts. Perhaps more dangerous than no light at all.
Once city (I can't recall which) had a really cool solution to this where they installed string lights. Lots of small, dim lights don't negatively impact your nightvision, keep the path pretty visible, and don't cause too much light pollution
TFA claims that lights don’t reduce crime, but I‘d like to see the exact meaning of that statistic (eg dark places are less frequented hence less crime?).
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> The problem is not just with people who want to walk places, but people who want to mug/murder/rape those that do.
This is a completely irrational (though commonplace) fear. Criminals aren’t hiding out in bushes in desolate parks to mug or rape random people. Muggings most commonly happen in side paths off of busy high streets because criminals, being people, like to hang out in stimulating places where they won’t get bored. They’re not going to be donning ghillie suits and lying patiently in wait for however long in uncomfortable brush for a hapless victim to cross their path. The muggings are crimes of opportunity. Rapists are most commonly somewhat trusted friends or acquaintances who have access to people when they’re in vulnerable states in private, protected spots.
Thinking parks and parking lots need to be lit up like Christmas to deter crime is just a veneer of rationalization to cope with the standard childhood fear of the dark. It is not backed by data or evidence. The actual main public safety concerns when it’s dark out are trip-and-fall hazards or collisions with or vehicles who can’t react fast enough when things pop out at them, not muggers and rapists. Having the nighttime environment overly lit actually makes shadows starker and blows out people’s night-vision so they can’t find things. If anything, it makes the edge case where Sam Fischer is hiding in the bushes more dangerous rather than less.
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People associate a lack of lighting with crime
I vaguely remember that studies showed that lack of streetlights does not create crime, but the crime that happens anyways prefers badly lit areas. But from a pedestrian's perspective that's not much relief, you'd still avoid those areas. Which is not what a city planner has in mind for a park
Also part of the issue is that lighting at night creates enormous contrast between dark areas. Even darkness is something our eyes are well-adapted to, and we can see surprisingly well with even a little moonlight. We struggle with alternating bright/dark areas.
No. Unless you expect everyone to always have those things you will need the street lights anyway so why not make them smart and efficient. This especially applies in northern latitudes where it is dark in the evening even before people leave work.
I would consider that ideal, but there would always be the fear of a potential negligence lawsuit if someone got hurt or crimed, so the government considers them necessary.
Would prefer very dim or red lighting. Also preserves your night vision
If it gets used a good bit, I wonder if the on/off cycles are even more impactful to the local wildlife than constant but more optimized lighting was in place.
I know if I was trying to sleep a constant source of light is easier to get used to than a randomly flashing source of light. And for nocturnal animals I'd imagine randomly losing the cover of darkness from time to time is probably a lot more stressful than just avoiding the brighter areas.
I'd be interested in seeing data. I really wonder which is better.
Serious question: Wouldn't it be better to just have them always be on with red light that is much less disruptive to wildlife?
The sodium lamps that were ubiquitous for outdoor lighting before LEDs were quite good from this point of view.
Amber LEDs could provide a similar experience.