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Letter: Bright LED streetlights should have downward reflectors

While new LED streetlights installed across the North Shore are said to reduce light pollution, this letter writer says the new lights are annoyingly brighter
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LED street lights like this one are replacing less energy-efficient ones across the North Shore. | Andy Prest / North Shore News

Dear Editor:

I read your newspaper article about LED streetlights going up across the North Shore. I also noticed all the new LED streetlights around the neighborhood last month, and particularly the one on our local street corner.

I’m a bit puzzled at how much light pollution is given off by these newly installed lights. How does a light with this design get chosen for such broad usage in this day of light pollution awareness?

Because these new brighter LEDs lack downward reflectors, my top floor rooms now are lit up from the light shining through the windows. I suppose the light control design is the same as the old lights, but they are annoyingly brighter in my rooms.

I would have expected a new light to prevent so much light pollution by simply designing it so it only lights up the street area below them. The fact that you can see the light bulb outside a radius is, in my opinion, a bad lighting design.

The image you have comparing the different light options is a good example of light pollution (see photo below). You shouldn’t see the light bulb if a simple reflector was incorporated in the light housing from the photographer’s standpoint.

Keith Braun
Ambleside, West Vancouver

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