Better Streetlights for Tulsa

[patric]

In 2009 Tulsa stopped adding new streetlights due to increased expense and lack of evidence of any crime reduction. Ten years later all that has changed is increased fear-mongering from those seeking corporate welfare at taxpayer expense.
Areas with existing streetlighting, like the Blue Dome and Cheery Street, got newer, more efficient low-glare lighting by looking outside of PSO's energy-wasting inventory. Now we are preparing to take a big step backward.

Keep in mind that there is also no law requiring a city to have streetlights, mainly because every installation of a street light incurs liability if the bulb burns out and someone claims an injury as a result.  https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1129807.html


City of Tulsa Preparing to Start Work in Neighborhood Street Light Initiative

' The City of Tulsa's streets and stormwater department is getting ready to start in on a three-year-plan to add neighborhood street lights.

The city's current budget included $25,000 for the work, which is intended to whittle down a backlog of requests that built up during a 10-year moratorium on new lights. The funds will go toward PSO's installation work. The utility owns and maintains street lights in the city, which the city pays a fee for.

"For roundabout numbers, about $10 per month, so $120 a year per light, that gets us 150 foot of wire, a pole and a light fixture. If there's not an available electric source close to that, then we have to pay whatever costs – if they have to set additional poles, if there's a transformer needed," said Streets and Stormwater Director Terry Ball.

Ball's department and the Tulsa Planning Office are using a scoring system to prioritize the list of requests, with half the weight given to safety considerations.

"A lot of the requests in the past we got were people that had crime happening in their neighborhoods and felt like if they could get a street light added, that would help at least deter people," Ball said.

The concentration of car crashes involving bicycles and pedestrians are also considered in the safety portion of the score. '


There are a number of problems with this. First, the plan isnt to use newer energy-efficient lights but rather the same glare-prone junk lights from the 1970's (commonly called "farm lights").  The current state-of-the-art is warm white shielded LED that closely resembles incandescent light. This is not to be confused with earlier LEDs that have a distinct blue cast and have been recognized by the AMA as a risk to human health. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.5.1079/full/

Second, the program only budgets installation cost and not the cost of electricity in perpetuity. What schools will we close to pay the power bill further down the road?

Third, streetlights have not been shown to have a positive effect on crime, according to independent studies. Utility-funded studies, on the other hand, claim otherwise without offering evidence. https://kinder.rice.edu/sites/g/files/bxs1676/f/documents/Kinder%20Streetlights%20and%20Crime%20report.pdf

Fourth, concentrations of car crashes involving bicycles and pedestrians have been linked to the presence of disabling glare from commercial high-intensity lighting -- glare so intense it overwhelms your ability to see at night even when streetlights are present.  There are zoning laws against that, maybe we should be enforcing them?
http://tulsaplanning.org/plans/TulsaZoningCode.pdf (chapter 67)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-led-streetlights-spread-some-critics-look-for-dimmer-switch-1473818463

"So we consider this a new program. It's almost like our speed hump program ... it will be citizen-generated."
Last year the city installed speed humps in the Bryn Mawr neighborhood without consulting the residents that would actually be affected by drivers circumventing the humps, so thats not a good example to follow.

"(Streetlight requests) must then be approved by at least three of the four property owners adjacent to the property where the light would be installed, Ball said."
There needs to be consideration for affected properties more than just one house away, since the glare and "light trespass" is worse at low angles. Objections should be counted, not ignored, as they would likely lead to lawsuits and claims against the city.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/government-and-politics/neighborhoods-will-get-more-street-lights-under-new-city-program/article_07746bc3-46b0-5fa3-8e99-43f906461592.html

[patric]

TULSA, Oklahoma - Carolyn Richards' family has owned a house near Pine and Lewis for more than 60 years, and they've never had a street light in front of it.

"It's so dark, you can't see," said Richards.

All that is about to change as the city has prioritized their street, Atlanta Avenue, as one of 137 to get a brand-new street light.
The installation is part of a new program by the City of Tulsa.

During the time period when they didn't have the money, Director of Streets and Stormwater Terry Ball and his team, put the requests into a spreadsheet and ranked them on a priority system based on crime, hazards and nearby uses.

Richards said she hopes the new light will deter thefts she's seen recently on the street.
If you want a city light on your street and don't have one, the city said you can request by calling 311.
https://www.newson6.com/story/41490226/tulsa-sets-aside-dollar25000-for-installing-requested-street-lights


While you are at KOTV's website, click thru all the crime photos lit by streetlights.
We didnt install streetlights because the city ran out of money subsidizing peoples yard lights, and crime-control methods that havent worked

[patric]

As Cities in Oklahoma Update Streetlights With LEDs, Doctors Warn About Road Ahead

...It's confusing, but the color temperature number Baker referenced is important. Smaller numbers are perceived as warmer and oranger, larger numbers are cooler and bluer. At 4,000 Kelvin, the LED street lights in downtown Tulsa appear white, but Dr. Mario Motta says they're actually too blue.

"If you put a spectrometer on it, the 4000K LEDs are 30 percent blue," he says.

Motta is a medical doctor who has studied how lighting affects human health. He's also an avid amateur astronomer who has researched the environmental effects of light pollution. Motta helped author guidance recently issued by the American Medical Association. The country's largest organization of physicians now urges cities to avoid LEDs on the blue end of the color spectrum.

"It's bad for human driving. It's hurtful to the eye. It actually causes pupillary constriction, so you see worse in the dark," Motta says.

Motta and other doctors say blue-ish light can disrupt sleep patterns, hormone regulation and other internal biological cycles.

Research also suggests blue-hued lighting affects birds, insects, turtles and other nocturnal wildlife.

"They're sold as very energy efficient, eco-friendly, green because they use less electricity," Motta says. "But as soon as they're put up, the complaints start roaring in."

LED street lights have received fierce backlash around the country, from Seattle to Brooklyn. The city of Davis, California, paid $350,000 to replace hundreds of LEDs with warmer units residents could live with.

City traffic engineering manager Kurt Kraft says Tulsa has been installing the bluer-hued LEDs — in both the downtown area and a handful of new highway projects — but said officials would consider changes if new science comes in.

"I think the consensus is more research needs to be done in looking at the longer term health effects and the exposure from street lights in particular," Kraft says.

https://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2016/07/21/as-cities-in-oklahoma-update-streetlights-with-leds-doctors-warn-about-road-ahead/

[patric]

One of my favorite LED streetlight designs got an upgrade to 2700K (Incandescent warm-white color) which has a much greater public acceptance factor than the garish blu-ish ones we see too much of today.




The Verdeon LED roadway luminaire is now available with the new C-Series LED upgrade, along with a new Type I optic and a standard option for 2700K CCT (80CRI).

http://www.cooperindustries.com/content/public/en/lighting/products/roadway_lighting/_865303.html

http://www.cooperindustries.com/content/dam/public/lighting/products/documents/streetworks/spec_sheets/strworks-verdeon-cseries-spec.pdf

(And of course I have no financial interest in the maker)

[Cetary]

Here's a video showing the 2700K GE Evolve vs the amber toned 1700K LPS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DU9ev3VuXw

Those two pictures showing the lights on residential are using 14 watt 2700K lamps on 25 foot poles. This is a far cry from the 70-100 watts of HPS that was used allot in similar setups although Murrieta had 55 watts of LPS on the poles previously. While I might not mind 2700K on arterial roads, I feel that residential should be warmer or even use PC Amber LEDs in neighborhoods with low to moderate pedestrian activity. They are beginning to install PC Amber LEDs in residential in Riverside, CA. Cree has also announced a 2200K RSW, no date on when that will show up on the spec. sheets though.


Lexington, MA is replacing their old 4000K induction fixtures with 2700K LED which is a tremendous improvement. The induction fixtures were installed around 2010 and were part of the first waves of HPS swap-outs. Hopefully we'll start seeing more of this as other fixtures reach the end of their useful lifespan.

https://lexington.wickedlocal.com/news/20200302/led-streetlights-to-save-lexington-money-energy

Pittsfield, MA is another community going 2700K, but this time from FCO HPS. I believe they also did surveys that showed the majority preference was in the 2700K. People preferred the 2700K fixtures over the 3000K.

https://www.cityofpittsfield.org/city_hall/public_services/streetlight_led_conversion_project.php

Pittsburgh is having Carnegie Melon University research future lighting solutions for their upcoming conversion. The highest CCT they are considering is 2700K. They do have at least one street with 2200K test fixtures, so they are looking into the very warm range.

[patric]

Dozens of Tulsa schools get new street lights as part of Vision Tulsa program

The street light project cost the city $126,490 to prepare the sites for the new lights. AEP-PSO installed them, and the city is responsible for the electric bills.

Sue Ann Bell, facilities director for TPS, praised the program Monday.
"We have had a number of accidents around our schools because cars travel so fast," she said.

https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/government-and-politics/dozens-of-tulsa-schools-get-new-street-lights-as-part-of-vision-tulsa-program/article_00eaa6d4-28ca-58c9-b226-bb7ada7a285f.html

Because streetlights make drivers slow down... Got it.  
/s

[patric]

Talks on new franchise agreement underway between city, PSO

Public Service Company of Oklahoma has been providing electric service to residents of Tulsa since 1913, and city officials have no reason to believe that will change any time soon.
But, ultimately, that's not their decision to make. The utility operates in the city under a franchise agreement that must be approved by voters, and the existing 25-year agreement is set to expire in July 2022.

Jack Blair, the city's chief operating officer, said he expects the vote on the new agreement to occur in February. In the meantime, the Mayor's Office and city councilors are in discussions with PSO to hammer out the details of what that agreement would include.
A franchise agreement gives a utility the right to access public rights of way to provide a public service, in this case electric power. In return, the city charges a fee.

Under its existing agreement with the city, PSO pays an annual 2% fee based on its gross receipts in the Tulsa service area. The funds, which amount to about $9 million a year, go into the city's general fund.

The franchise fee is one aspect of the agreement that could be different when it goes before voters in February.
"We are a little bit of an outlier," Blair said. "Our 2 percent, it dates back to the 1933 franchise, and probably before, so I wouldn't be surprised if we revisit that, but it hasn't been determined (yet)."

If a franchise fee increase is pursued, Blair said, the city would also look to ensure that service improvements that constituents could see would follow.

"Our street and highway (light) program is important to people, and that is another enormously expensive proposition," he said. "So stabilizing that and improving that for the long term I think is important."

Blair said there have been some discussions with PSO about how to make it less expensive to install underground lines, but he cautioned that no one should expect "that with the new franchise that every above-ground pole is going to be put underground."

The Mayor's Office and city councilors have also been discussing the process for selecting light poles and what they look like. The city is putting together a catalog of pole standards and costs it hopes will provide a better understanding of the city's options.
"The issue has been kind of inconsistency, so we'll put up one kind of pole in an area, and a block away have a different kind of pole," Blair said.

City Councilor MyKey Arthrell said his main concern going into talks with PSO is energy sustainability.
"We can't just have one source of energy for power, or what happened this winter is going to continue to happen," Arthrell said.
The city councilor would like to see PSO diversify its energy sources and ensure that the energy sources it does rely on have winterized facilities.
"That is the only way I see them getting a 25-year contract," Arthrell said. "If they are really wanting to do this for another 25 years, they need to think big in terms of investment."

The Mayor's Office is working with city councilors to arrange public meetings in the next few months to get residents' input on the new agreement.

https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/talks-on-new-franchise-agreement-underway-between-city-pso/article_b6d0ecd0-93d0-11eb-94fe-fb8413f58915.html


Until fairly recently, the primary purpose of utility-provided street lighting has not been to effectively light streets, but to provide an off-peak load to help the utility balance its generating capacity.  Nighttime spinning-down of turbines, and then restarting them when daytime demand resumes, is more expensive than allowing the turbines to stay on-line and using the streetlighting system to act as ballast; giving that excess generating capacity somewhere to go.
...and to be paid for by taxpayers.

Now that electric cars are a thing, more and more people are charging their cars overnight, and the electric demand that creates offsets the need for streetlighitng that is unnecessary and wasteful as illumination.  And as more illumination today comes from more efficient LEDs, the reduced electric demand from them makes LED streetlights a less attractive "energy sponge" for AEP.

Letting the electric providers be the primary deciders of how and what the streetlighting system should be is fast becoming an obsolete tradition nationwide.
Gone will be the days when Tulsans had to trust that whatever was in the PSO warehouse were the best choices for lighting our public places.

Newer lighting like The Gathering Place, Cherry Street and the Blue Dome District give us tantalizing glimpses as to what we can accomplish when we can actually focus on the quality of that lighting, rather than yield to what the utility desires to market. 

[Red Arrow]

...
The utility operates in the city under a franchise agreement that must be approved by voters, and the existing 25-year agreement is set to expire in July 2022.
...
A franchise agreement gives a utility the right to access public rights of way to provide a public service, in this case electric power. In return, the city charges a fee.

Under its existing agreement with the city, PSO pays an annual 2% fee based on its gross receipts in the Tulsa service area.

I actually live in Bixby but expect Tulsans have the same opportunity to pay a line item amount for the franchise fee.  PSO is not paying it.  Anyone who thinks they are is deluding themselves.

Until fairly recently, the primary purpose of utility-provided street lighting has not been to effectively light streets, but to provide an off-peak load to help the utility balance its generating capacity.  Nighttime spinning-down of turbines, and then restarting them when daytime demand resumes, is more expensive than allowing the turbines to stay on-line and using the streetlighting system to act as ballast; giving that excess generating capacity somewhere to go.
...and to be paid for by taxpayers.

More like no expense for PSO and they even make money on it.   Do they actually need to let the turbines spin down?  My emergency generator turns the same RPM with light load or heavier load (to maintain 60 Hz).  I can tell when I add a load because the gasoline motor changes its sound. I suspect some clever marketing to non-technical folks.  Let's hear from some knowledgeable power systems guys. (Yes, even you Herion.)

Why does my check to Public Service Company of Oklahoma go to Pittsburgh, PA.  I know, it's actually AEP, has nothing to do with Oklahoma.

[patric]

I actually live in Bixby but expect Tulsans have the same opportunity to pay a line item amount for the franchise fee.  PSO is not paying it.  Anyone who thinks they are is deluding themselves.
More like no expense for PSO and they even make money on it.   Do they actually need to let the turbines spin down?  My emergency generator turns the same RPM with light load or heavier load (to maintain 60 Hz).  I can tell when I add a load because the gasoline motor changes its sound. I suspect some clever marketing to non-technical folks.  Let's hear from some knowledgeable power systems guys. (Yes, even you Herion.)

Why does my check to Public Service Company of Oklahoma go to Pittsburgh, PA.  I know, it's actually AEP, has nothing to do with Oklahoma.

By "spin down" I dont mean the generators run slower...  

When they arent needed to address peak load, they disconnect them from the grid and are no longer generating electricity. The expense comes when they need to be restarted.

[patric]

Its the epitome of the shallowness and stupidity of television reporting. 
KJRH congratulates themselves for helping a blind woman complain about a broken streetlight that isnt a streetlight.

https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/west-tulsa-neighborhood-goes-without-streetlight-concerned-about-dangerous-problems-for-months

[heironymouspasparagus]

I actually live in Bixby but expect Tulsans have the same opportunity to pay a line item amount for the franchise fee.  PSO is not paying it.  Anyone who thinks they are is deluding themselves.

More like no expense for PSO and they even make money on it.   Do they actually need to let the turbines spin down?  My emergency generator turns the same RPM with light load or heavier load (to maintain 60 Hz).  I can tell when I add a load because the gasoline motor changes its sound. I suspect some clever marketing to non-technical folks.  Let's hear from some knowledgeable power systems guys. (Yes, even you Herion.)

Why does my check to Public Service Company of Oklahoma go to Pittsburgh, PA.  I know, it's actually AEP, has nothing to do with Oklahoma.

Right - same rpm to keep 60Hz.  Your home generator 'sound' is telling you the load is changing, which I know you already know.  That is 'symptom' of power level changes.   Disclaimer - when I need details, I always asked the PSO power guys for answers, but in general;  they go to great pains to maintain 60Hz output - slowing and speeding up very small amounts, over any given 24Hr time to get 60Hz as close as they can.  And they do a very good job of that. 

And there is a field excitation to the generator that changes the available power.  Best way I can explain, is like an electromagnet that they can make stronger or weaker fields to make more or less power to the grid.  Surely we have a PSO power guy out there in this audience who can make a better explanation...??

Windmills do it all different - small ones I understand and have built some small 'toys' that are nice.  (See https://otherpower.com/ for info.)  - bigger ones like out on the prairie make a power wave (voltage/current), then use electronic inverters to create the output voltage/current.  Synch to grid, then put it on the lines.

[Red Arrow]

Right - same rpm to keep 60Hz.  Your home generator 'sound' is telling you the load is changing, which I know you already know.  That is 'symptom' of power level changes.   Disclaimer - when I need details, I always asked the PSO power guys for answers, but in general;  they go to great pains to maintain 60Hz output - slowing and speeding up very small amounts, over any given 24Hr time to get 60Hz as close as they can.  And they do a very good job of that. 

And there is a field excitation to the generator that changes the available power.  Best way I can explain, is like an electromagnet that they can make stronger or weaker fields to make more or less power to the grid.  Surely we have a PSO power guy out there in this audience who can make a better explanation...??

60 Hz, keeps the clocks accurate.  Yes, PSO and any other major power supplier in the USA does a good job there.

Field excitation is what I was thinking.  No field excitation would be no power out and the only power required in would be to keep the turbine spinning.  Friction losses etc.  Should be very small compared to when generating power.  I don't know if the generators can be set to zero power out.  PSO certainly does not want to shut down a boiler.

[heironymouspasparagus]

60 Hz, keeps the clocks accurate.  Yes, PSO and any other major power supplier in the USA does a good job there.

Field excitation is what I was thinking.  No field excitation would be no power out and the only power required in would be to keep the turbine spinning.  Friction losses etc.  Should be very small compared to when generating power.  I don't know if the generators can be set to zero power out.  PSO certainly does not want to shut down a boiler.

Losses in the grid are the big issue, not in generators.  About 30% - a little over - lost between the generator and end user due to line impedance.  We could just double the transmission wiring and be like adding a LOT of new generation capacity!

[Red Arrow]

Losses in the grid are the big issue, not in generators.  About 30% - a little over - lost between the generator and end user due to line impedance.  We could just double the transmission wiring and be like adding a LOT of new generation capacity!

Yep, line losses are significant.  It's been a long time since I took Doc Strattan's course in power systems but transmission is an issue. 

However, the thing I was questioning/addressing was Patric's post indicating the expense of "restarting" generators if they were disconnected from the grid during off-peak hours.

From Patric, starting 04 Apr 2021

Until fairly recently, the primary purpose of utility-provided street lighting has not been to effectively light streets, but to provide an off-peak load to help the utility balance its generating capacity.  Nighttime spinning-down of turbines, and then restarting them when daytime demand resumes, is more expensive than allowing the turbines to stay on-line and using the streetlighting system to act as ballast; giving that excess generating capacity somewhere to go.
...and to be paid for by taxpayers.

By "spin down" I dont mean the generators run slower...  

When they arent needed to address peak load, they disconnect them from the grid and are no longer generating electricity. The expense comes when they need to be restarted.

[swake]

Yep, line losses are significant.  It's been a long time since I took Doc Strattan's course in power systems but transmission is an issue. 

However, the thing I was questioning/addressing was Patric's post indicating the expense of "restarting" generators if they were disconnected from the grid during off-peak hours.

From Patric, starting 04 Apr 2021

IIRC gas turbines are relatively easy to start/stop. It's coal they have to keep going.