DALLAS — The future is LED. But when it comes to street lights, neighbors in Dallas’ Junius Heights ask: why does the future have to be so bright?
It’s what Barbara Cohen asked two weeks ago after Oncor replaced a failed sodium vapor light on Tremont Street with a new LED model. A bright white light replaced the previous soft, pinkish glow.
"Oh, it's dramatically different,” Cohen said of the new light across the street from her home.
“There’s something to be said about light that is so bright that if you're walking down the street or you look at it, it burns your eyes,” she said. "It isn't about the color. It isn't about them being white. It's just about them being so bright."
"Well, the new lights are too bright,” neighbor Brent Bristol said. “It shouldn’t be like you're in the parking lot of a Walmart or something."
Oncor and the city of Dallas are slowly transitioning to LED street lights, as previous models fail and as budgets permit. They are more economical and last longer.
"It's a balancing act,” Dallas City Councilman Philip Kingston said. “Neighborhoods need good lighting for security. We need to move to LED lighting to save money and save energy. But these don't have to be incompatible. They don't have to annoy people."
So, in our interview, and in social media, Kingston encouraged neighbors who are annoyed by the newly installed lights to call and complain. He said that with enough input from citizens that perhaps filters or baffles or something to better focus the lights can be found.
Cohen said that Oncor, which owns and maintains the light across from her house, did adjust the light at her request, so that it didn’t shine so brightly on her house. But when compared to the old lights, she said it still looked like a supernova of sorts shining high above Tremont Street.
"That light," she said, "if you accidentally look up into it, it burns your eyeballs and kind of puts those blue dots in your eyes."
And while Cohen does agree that LED lights are the future and agrees that they are more economical and that they are the direction the city and energy providers should go, she just hopes that this bright high-tech future does arrive with a little help.
"Help keep our neighborhoods looking like neighborhoods," Cohen said, "and not like parking lots."