Here is Milton Keynes the council recently turned off many of the lights on the grid roads to save money (to anyone unfamiliar the grid roads are a network of single and dual carriageway roads criss-crossing the city, with mainly 60/70 mph limits).
I am use to driving on unlit roads at night, but the problem with the grid roads is that they were always designed with street lights. As a consequence they don't have cats eyes, or any kind of reflective markers at the side of the road. It is odd, you don't always notice things like that, but you certainly notice their absence!
At the moment the lights are still on at junctions and roundabouts, so the unlit stretches of road are maybe 100-200m. But our council have form for function creep (in about 15 years the city centre has very slowly gone from 100% free parking to 100% pay parking, a few hundred bays at a time). Maybe over time the lights will all go out.
Any thoughts on how important cats eyes and other features are on unlit roads? Is it even legal to not have them on NSL roads?
My feeling is that they wouldn't put cats eyes everywhere else if they weren't important.
|
We live in a Moorland area in Cornwall and the only cats eyes we see are real ones :-)
We come from London, so used to streetlights and cats eyes, but have got used to total darkness now,
I would have thought that in somewhere like M.K., it wouldn't a good idea to just turn the street lights off.
Better to reduce the wage bill of the big chiefs at MK council.
|
Are they turned off completely or just in the 'small hours'? Noticed a sticker on a lampost locally (while waiting for a traffic light) advising that it was off by design and not faulty.
There are signs on the Northants/Leics stretch of the M1 advising that street lights are off form midnight to 5am. Thought at first it might be to facilitate upgrade but it's (a) gone on too long and (b) is over too much road for that to add up.
|
It appears to be permanent, they were off at 9pm yesterday. God knows what it is going to be like in winter. Especially since there do seem to be a disturbing number of cyclists here who are happy to mix with 70mph traffic without lights, helmets of reflective clothing.
The projected savings, a few £100K, probably actually are within spitting distance of a few well chosen pay cuts at the top. But of course if we did that the talented individuals who run our city would all be snapped up by industry, and nobody could possibly replace them...
|
On the A-roads around Leicester they have switched off many street lights for months now. There are still two or three lights illuminated at the start and end of sliproads, around roundabouts and at T-junctions for example, but the straight featureless sections are now in darkness.
In some respects it does seem a step backwards, but IMO the driver is pandered to too much, and a bit of taking responsibility for looking where you're going can't be a bad thing.
|
I wouldn't necessarily describe lighting main roads as pandering to motorists. The grid roads in MK really are little short of two lane motorways, except that we share them with cyclists and the occasional pedestrian making a mad dash for it. You wouldn't believe someone would run through speeding traffic rather than use the underpass, but they do.
On the specific point of cats eyes, however, are there rules about those? If the grid roads had originally been intended to unlit, they would have put cats eyes in I am sure (just like every other A road in the area) - so just switching off the lights when there are no cats eyes seems like a compromise on safety.
|
>> Especially since there do seem to be a
>> disturbing number of cyclists here who are happy to mix with 70mph traffic without lights,
>> helmets of reflective clothing.
Lack of lights and to a lesser extent retro reflective stripes, is just stupidity.
A helmet does nothing for visibility and offers little useful protection in cycle/vehicle collisions. Personally I'd rather not wear one and retain unimpeded vision and hearing while losing the tempatation to fiddle with the damned uncomfortable chinstrap.
And don't start me on the subject of why cyclists don't use the redways........
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 22 Aug 11 at 15:18
|
The French [often?] don't have catseyes on their motorways. Makes them horrid when driving at night.
|
>> The French [often?] don't have catseyes on their motorways. Makes them horrid when driving at night.
You're saying the French or their roads are horrid at night? ;-)
I would think cats eyes were needed on the roads in questions around MK if the lights are turned off. But then again aren't the roads all straight?
|
Our road is a minor side road with no through traffic.
We have just been advised that our street lights are to upgraded in four weeks time or so.
There will be at least new light units on the existing poles but will be better white lights rather than orange, centrally computer controlled and dimmed at night.
All part of the whole of the street lighting of Surrey being upgraded.
It will be interesting to see the effect.
|
|
turn off street lights, remove all reflective aids, make vehicles without a main beam, and then folk will probably start driving at sensible speeds at night! = maybe!!
|
|
What about adaptive bi-xenons?
|
The installation of new lights in my immediate area iw now well under way.
On the local bus route and similar through roads all the tall concrete lamp standards are being replaced with steel poles and brighter lamps.
The first replacement lamp unit only has been installed in my "side" road.
The dim orange glow has been replaced with a many times brighter, very white light unit.
I am impressed with the results. I hope the promised savings occur.
Some details of the kit
www.ukastle.co.uk/discussion/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=142
Croydon & Lewisham is the next PFI contract
www.skanska.co.uk/News--Press/Display-news/?nid=AqsaVdE6
|
Turning off street lights - Dog
