History of street lighting in the United States
Artificial illumination has stimulated commercial activity at night, and has been tied to the country's economic development, including major innovations in transportation, particularly the growth in automobile use.
[1] The year before, a newspaper editorial had called for a system of public lamps to prevent crime and protect citizens at night.
[1][8] Inventor Charles F. Brush had been perfecting the dynamo arc light, which could produce a glow equivalent to 4,000 candles in a single lamp.
[8] For the demonstration, which drew a crowd of thousands, Brush positioned twelve 2,000-candlepower lamps on towers around Cleveland's Public Square (then known as Monumental Park), and fully illuminated it with electric light.
[1][8] The first municipal government to purchase and install the Brush arc lighting system was the city of Wabash, Indiana.
[1] On Fifth Avenue, however, arc lamps were dismantled after residents complained that the wires connecting the fixtures were "unsightly", and most of the street "returned to the gloom of gas.
[3] Incandescent lamps were initially developed primarily for indoor use, but major technology breakthroughs in 1907 and 1911 perfected the use of tungsten filaments.
[1] From 1911 onward, electric incandescent lamps with tungsten filaments became an increasingly popular choice among municipal utilities for public street lighting.
[1] In 1919, San Francisco introduced tungsten bulbs on Van Ness Avenue, between Vallejo and Market Street, replacing gas mantles and arc lamps.
[1] According to The Electrical Review: “Under the old system of lighting it was dangerous for a pedestrian to attempt to cross the street because of the heavy automobile traffic.
"[11] By the mid-20th century, increasing motorization necessitated better illumination, particularly in business districts where there was more mixing of cars and pedestrians, as well as along commercial thoroughfares.
[1] The first large street installation of mercury vapor lamps in the United States was in Denver, Colorado, on Park Avenue, where they were used together with incandescents.
However, because they enhanced visual acuity, they were recommended for safety lighting in tunnels, on bridges, and at "cloverleaf" interchanges on express highways.
[18] However, for the first two years, DTE Energy continued to bill Ann Arbor at the same rate as before, because the street lights were not metered, and electricity charges were estimated based on past use.
[18] As of January 2011, the city of Ann Arbor had switched 1,400 of its 7,000 streetlight fixtures to LEDs, and saved approximately $200,000, including reduced maintenance costs.
[1] In 1802, Benjamin Henfry erected an oil-based "thermolamp" on a tall column in Richmond, Virginia, which failed to cast as much light as he had hoped for.
[1] Municipalities that adopted tower lighting or "moontowers" for a period included Akron, Aurora, Austin, Buffalo, Chattanooga, Denver, Detroit, Elgin, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Hannibal, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Louisville, Minneapolis, Mobile, San Francisco, and San Jose.
[24] The induction lamps were expected to last 100,000 hours before requiring maintenance and consume 30 to 40 percent less electricity, thereby saving an estimated $1 million annually.
[24] Following extensive field tests, the City of San Diego decided in 2010 to replace 10,000 of its high-pressure sodium (HPS) streetlights with cobra-head induction luminaires.
[25] One of the key findings of the field assessment was that LED luminaires became more expensive and less efficient at lower color temperatures.
[26] Urban Light at the entrance to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Center, Los Angeles, is an assemblage of historical street lights taken from actual usage in Southern California in the form of a 2008 sculpture by Chris Burden.
