It is a confusing story, and not well supported by actual facts or studies. So I wonder about these things, who has it in for street lights? Crooks obviously it makes their life harder (and it mentions in the article that police are getting better witness descriptions under LED lights). And presumably the folks who made the old Mercury Vapor lights. Which happen to have about 1/10th the cost to make as LED lights but seem to sell for the same amount, so perhaps their margins are getting squeezed uncomfortably. Power companies of course, who could depend on the electricity load coming from inefficient street lights finding that one of their biggest consumer at their lowest utilization time is cutting their power requirements by 33% or more. That has to hurt you really don't want to turn off base load during the night. And of course people who liked the look of their street before and now are sad because it looks different[1].

[1] When people switched from coal fireplaces to gas heat a common complaint was that it didn't smell like home any more.