The following was sent to us from Francois-Xavier Morin, of LightFX. Mr. Morin serves on the IES Board of Directors.
It looks like the journalist from the Montreal Gazette erroneously stated that Montreal was replacing incandescent streetlights to LED. It should have read that Montreal is replacing its HPS streetlights for LED.
Given that this 132 000 streetlights LED retrofit has caused quite a stir here in Montreal, as the city had announced just before Christmas that 4000K LED streetlights were chosen to illuminate its streets, it literally mobilized several individuals from the lighting world to insure that Montreal makes the right choice: 3000K.
Amongst 3000K proponents, Conor Sampson, (architect and principal of CS Design, a renowned Montreal-based lighting design firm) & Dominique Laroche, (architect) wrote a well articulated article on why Montreal should do without 4000K, and preferably select 3000K instead. The article is written in French (see link to La Presse below), but here’s a quick, non-professional, translated summary of the article:
Changing 132 000 streetlights throughout a city isn’t an easy task, especially if those streetlights are to illuminate the city for the next 30 years.
According to Montreal’s public health agency who issued a report that concluded 4,000 Kelvin lights does not pose a threat to public health, even though it yields a bit more blue content when compared to HPS streetlights being currently used, there is no need to worry and Montreal can use 4000K.
Before taking on this endeavour, and given that Montreal a been named a UNESCO City of Design (https://designmontreal.com/en/montreal-unesco-city-of-design), have our elected officials pondered on the effect and the ambiance those new 4000K streetlights will create in its streets?
4000K LED streetlights emit a blue hue that modifies the colors of building surfaces and gives it a « synthetic » feel, rendering a colder color spectrum. They are a bit like old fluorescent lamps or CFL lamps from another era, before they were replaced by warmer tone lamps in spaces where ambiance and feel was deemed important.
Can we imagine the old Montreal being lit in a 1970’s old fluorescent ambiance? Can we imagine, bricks, masonry, architectural reliefs and passerby’s face transformed by this cold and bluish light?
Yet, a warmer tone light source would contribute in improving the appearance of those elements.
Warmer color LED do exist, but they are a tad more expensive and yield less light than its 4000K counterpart. However, most streets are over lit and thus, produce an impressive amount of light pollution.
Montreal is currently working on new benchmarks and standards for most of its districts and main streets; it would be surprising that esthetic and ambiance aren’t integral to those new standards.
In this context, why shouldn’t our elected officials select 3000K LED’s? Montrealers would then be thankful that a warmer and more festive night time ambiance was given to a city that is about to celebrate its 375th anniversary.
Francois-Xavier Morin, LC
Lighting Guru at LightFX, a new kind of lighting agency.
Guru en éclairage chez LightFX, une agence en éclairage vraiment différente.
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