My neighborhood in Washington, DC recently replaced a number of old sodium streetlights with new LED streetlights. The number of lights was doubled, but power consumption was still halved. The ballasts on the LEDs angle down at about 45 degrees—light pollution is reduced by 80% as a result.

The LEDs are a much brighter color temperature but I worked with the city to get them reduced from 4000K to 3000K (which has very little blue light).

All in all, a big win. There are technical solutions these days, and they pay for themselves. However, municipalities often operate on auto-pilot; let your local officials know where you want them to head.

Isn’t the ballast only required for a fluorescent bulb?

They probably mean lampshade / directionality. Ballasts are a current-limiting device, they would not influence the light geometry.

They meant the LED device, ie “bulb.” DC’s transportation department referred to it as a ballast; that might be inaccurate.

> the LED lights are a hard blue light

The Dark Sky folks recommend <3500K for colour temperature:

* https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-indus...

Another criteria to get their seal is controlling the angle that the light comes out to control for glare and such. Roadway lighting:

* https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-indus...

Street:

* https://www.darksky.org/our-work/lighting/lighting-for-indus...

And it doesn't even have to be that way! We have the power to choose something different. I've seen nice indirect lighting fixtures that aren't nearly as harsh, or lights that are warmer. They're just not the norm.

Or frankly just don't have street lights. I moved somewhere that doesn't have them, and I don't miss them at all. And I found out that I did miss darkness and was glad to reclaim it.

Illuminated billboards should just be illegal.

You might have a different opinion of street lights if you've ever had to walk alone in the dark.

Given that I live in an area that's dark, I walk alone in the dark all the time. I'm just one of the lucky minority of people that manages to escape being ruled by unsubstantiated or irrational fear.

Cool. I used to walk in the dark all the time. Then I got held up at gunpoint. It was not at that point practical for me to avoid walking in the dark, so I continued, though trying to be more aware of my surroundings. But such fear as I felt did not seem unsubstantiated or irrational.

Fear of stepping on something or falling or worse is not all that irrational. One might say your stance seems reckless or irrational.

I was actually thinking of crime, etc. Even if you live in a safe area, darkness creates opportunities.

And while I'm hesitant to bring this into it—if you're a man, consider if you weren't.

I don't need to illuminate the whole space all night to see where I'm going. I carry a flashlight on night walks. It light pollutes only the area right in front of me.

My city replaced it's old sodium lights with LEDs this year, and I was afraid they would do something similar but it's actually much better.

The LEDs they installed have a much narrower beam, around 45 degrees vs 180 for the sodium lamps. My apartment is at the level of street lamps, so the light would shine in directly through the window in the living room. Now I get only reflected light in.

The LED lights have around the same intensity as the sodium lamps, and because of the smaller beam angle, streets feel darker. However as the light is directed mainly on the road, it doesn't have any impact on driving.

The colour temperature is around 3500K which is still a bit colder than what I'd prefer. The colour temperature of sodium lamps definately invokes feelings of nostalgia. Part of this is because getting warmer than ~3000K LEDs is basically impossible as there is very little market demand, so nobody makes them.

It's easier to filter out the old sodium lights, too, for astronomy and astrophotography. (although these are essentially hobbies... I do think the other broader arguments in favor of stopping light pollution and making the night sky visible to people again are stronger.)

I was frequently walking my dogs at night when they made the switch in my town. I noticed I my visibility was greatly reduced because the LED lights were less diffuse. Anything under the lights I could see just fine but a few feet away was under the vale of darkness.

That may be somewhat intentional.

There has been more focus lately on reducing light pollution by ensuring light is projected towards the ground. It's true that LEDs are more naturally directional than other types of lamp, but mirrors and lenses can adjust that if desired.

A lot of lamps in the past had little cut-off, sometimes sending light straight up.

New designs, especially Dark Sky approved ones, tend to concentrate a lot more light straight down (0˚), with some spill over over out to 60˚ to the side, but having a hard-ish cut-off by 80˚.

If you simply do a 1:1 replacement of street lamp heads, the new more narrowly-focused units will of course not "splash" light as far—but who wants to install new poles for the new design?

LEDs can be just about any brightness and color, your city just chose harsh blue ones!

You might be interested in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIC-iGDTU40.