Breakfast links: Spotlight on roads

by Erik Weber • January 25, 2011 8:52 am

Photo by Michael Ragazzon on Flickr.

PG residents want brighter roads: Residents have been asking for better lighting for years at the Landover intersection where Wayne Cuffy was killed (and Ashley Halsey III blamed Cuffy). Local police and SHA officials attended a vigil for Cuffy. (TBD On Foot)

SHA trying darker roads: Maryland's State Highway Administration is trying reducing lighting along some highways to save energy and money. If adopted, will this be limited to freeways or might roads with pedestrians start getting darker? (Post)

Bad bills and bad Senators who support them: 5 Virginia Democratic senators including finance chairman Charles Colgan of Fairfax have endorsed Governor McDonnell's "borrow money to build roads" transportation plan. McDonnell is also proposing another bill to divert sales tax to build even more roads. (Post)

Money's for roads, but he wants control of Metro: Despite the governor's budgetary focus on roads over transit, he is supporting a bill from Fairfax Republican James LeMunyon to give him 2 of the 4 appointments to the WMATA Board and require that all Virginia representatives be transit experts rather than the kind of local officials who have served the state so well thus far. (Post) ... Ask your reps to oppose this bill here. (CSG)

Maryland needs new crosswalk strategy: Maryland is one of four states (if you count DC) in which 20% of all road fatalities include a pedestrian. This is partly due to higher exposure from population density, but also to a culture where drivers actually speed up to beat pedestrians across a crosswalk. (Baltimore Sun)

Gray, Brown ride $2,000/month SUVs: Both Vince Gray and Kwame Brown ride around in $2,000/month Lincoln Navigators all "fully loaded" with the fanciest features. It's not clear why it costs so much, or they couldn't use one of the cars they already had. (City Paper) ... Eric Fidler notes a Chevy Volt rental is just $430/month.

Talking transit, taxes and election tactics: News Channel 8's Bruce DePuyt sat down with David, Jim Dinegar of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and Post reporter Ann Scott Tyson to talk about Metro's future. DePuyt also hosted Jack Evans to talk about DC's budget deficit and Patrick Mara to talk about his Council run. (TBD)

National Harbor to add gas station: National Harbor, which asked to have a bus rerouted away from the development because it didn't fit the image they were seeking, is putting in a gas station to show a new focus on residential development. (RPUS)

And...: Don't forget Greater Greater Washington's 3rd birthday party tonight at RFD in Chinatown! ... The Guangzhou BRT won the 2011 Sustainable Transport award last night. The system is only 23 km long, but carries 800,000 passengers per day. (Transportation Nation) ... A 2-year-old who's "obsessed" with Seattle's trolleybuses got a bus-shaped cake for his birthday, with candles forming the trolley poles. (Treehugger)

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21 comments

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Erik Weber has been living car-free in the District since 2009. Hailing from the home of the nation's first Urban Growth Boundary, Erik has been interested in transit since spending summers in Germany as a kid where he rode as many buses, trains and streetcars as he could find. Views expressed here are Erik's alone.

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I'm sure I'll be in the minority, but I'm all for fewer lights on state highways. Light pollution is depressing and cuts us off from the natural world we live in.

On the other hand, if saving money is what they're after, why not replace all the lights with LEDs? Maybe those lights are already LEDs?

by Josh S on Jan 25, 2011 9:16 am • link • report

Highway lighting has long been the most ridiculous waste of electricity since before the invention of the lava lamp.

Neighborhood streets are one thing, there is a safety factor involved there so thats fine, but lighting beltways, highways and interstates is plain lunacy.

EIA does not have an estimate just for public street and highway lighting. It lumps it in with electricity consumed for lighting by the commercial sector, which includes commercial and institutional buildings and public street and highway lighting, equal to about 23% of commercial sector electricity consumption, or 303 billion kWh.

Lets just assume for arguments sake that of the 23% used for commercial lighting, 1/4th of it (5% of the total) was for lighting highways.

Drilling down further, the USA is the world's largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30% of worldwide nuclear generation of electricity.
The country's 104 nuclear reactors produced 799 billion kWh in 2009.

That roughly means that we could take 9 standard size nuke plants offline tomorrow, or more than 20 of our largest coal fired power plants if we just stopped needlessly lighting things like RT-66.

We all have lights on our cars and all drive just fine and dandy on roads without lights.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/ask/electricity_faqs.asp#electricity_lighting

by freely on Jan 25, 2011 9:24 am • link • report

Of course, Gray won't give up his car because Brown has one. And Brown won't give up his car because Gray has one.

Where is Mary Cheh to introduce a bill requiring the mayor to drive a Prius?

by ah on Jan 25, 2011 9:27 am • link • report

All of these technological leaps in lighting (LEDs, CFLs, et al) have only brought MORE lighting. Instead of using less energy, people are putting lights in more and more places and leaving those lights on. I'm all for reducing it.

by aaa on Jan 25, 2011 9:29 am • link • report

I agree with the comments on light pollution. While pedestrian streets call for lighting, limited access highways don't need them.

by TM on Jan 25, 2011 10:03 am • link • report

A correction: National Harbor did not try to route the bus away from their own development. They had the other end of the bus route relocated. It originally connected to the Green Line at a convenient (relatively!) station located in a less prestigious neighborhood. The route was changed to terminate at a more upscale, but less convenient station. After protests from the employees, it was eventually changed back.

by Ben Ross on Jan 25, 2011 10:24 am • link • report

Has anybody noticed that the lights on 395 in Arlington have been off for a while?

Although I'm in favor of reducing the lighting, the amount of time that it takes your eyes to adjust from DC's brightly lit portions to the (pitch black) ramp onto US-1 in Crystal City could create a safety hazard. I can see the reasons for lights around ramps and interchanges.

(PS. Those old yellow low-pressure sodium lights are actually more efficient than LEDs. LEDs *can* be more efficient if you dim them, attach motion sensors, or turn them off at specific hours. However, in terms of lumens-per-watt, nothing beats an old highway lamp)

by andrew on Jan 25, 2011 10:33 am • link • report

@Josh S:
Forget about using low power consumption technology. I would go further. I would eliminate all lighting on controlled access highways both urban an rural. If you can't see the road in front you from the illumination by the head light on your car you shouldn't be driving at night.

As most here know I live on the Eastern Shore, about 25 percent time the lighting makes it more difficult to see the road through the fog and rain where lighting is present at various intersection. Trying to see the road on the other side the intersection is like looking through a light bulb. We also have many long bridges (1 mile+) that are unnecessarily illuminated over their entire length.

by Sand Box John on Jan 25, 2011 10:41 am • link • report

Seconding (or "thirding") the comments on light pollution. As others point out, the sodium lamps used on highways are far more efficient that household or commercial lighting, so street lighting does't account for as large a portion of electrical use as one might think. But we use too much -- seriously, we don't need nearly as much lighting on roads as we currently use. And that goes for city streets as well. I am dumbfoudned by the number of street lights in residential neighborhoods in DC. It's called nighttime. It's when the sun goes down. Don't panic - th esun will come back eventually.

by Paula Product on Jan 25, 2011 10:43 am • link • report

I'm currently living in the UK, and they have very few lights on highways. On back-roads, there are some problems where people come over hills and around bends and you get "dazzled" as they say here, but overall, people manage just fine with FAR fewer lights on highways. It was something that surprised me when we got here, but now I've gotten to like it. Whenever I'm on a highway here, I think about how much energy we're wasting in the states on this. In towns, there's a blanket law that a lighted area means a speed limit of 30MPH, unless otherwise marked.

by Nick P on Jan 25, 2011 11:10 am • link • report

Yes, let's turn off the city street lights and rely on drivers to light the way for pedeatrians. Or maybe non-drivers should stay home after dark or travel with flashlights or oil lamps.

by snowpeas on Jan 25, 2011 11:12 am • link • report

Second the comments against over-lighting. There's also a lot in the parks (too much).

Is GGW going to do a story on the pedestrian who was hit by the Watergate yesterday?

by Jazzy on Jan 25, 2011 12:15 pm • link • report

The Watergate hit someone?

Seriously, I can't speak for Erik but I didn't see it. Can you submit it as a tip?

by David Alpert on Jan 25, 2011 12:17 pm • link • report

I don't see a problem with highway lighting. But then again I grew up in an area where during the winter, there were more business hours in the day than there were hours of daylight.

by Froggie on Jan 25, 2011 12:18 pm • link • report

Pedestrian Struck Near Watergate Hotel

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=596&sid=2247129

by Jazzy on Jan 25, 2011 12:22 pm • link • report

Investigators are trying to determine whether the pedestrian was in a crosswalk at the time of the incident.

It looks to me like being outside a crosswalk is legal in that area, because of the presence of unsignalized intersections.

And why aren't the investigators trying to determine whether the driver was obeying the speed limit? Talking on a cellphone? Paying insufficient attention to the street because listening to the radio?

by Ben Ross on Jan 25, 2011 12:50 pm • link • report

Is it legal to cross 6 lanes with no median strip safety area ? It obviously is not safe, and it looks like the two cross walks are both > 500 feet away from the Hotel, should DC force the city to build a tunnel or bridge?

by Mike D on Jan 25, 2011 1:38 pm • link • report

The solution, if adjacent intersections are too far away, would be a midblock crosswalk, enforced by ticketing cars that fail to yield the right of way. A traffic light is unnecessary - the traffic there is not heavy enough to require lights at adjacent intersections. A tunnel or bridge would be completely wrong in this urban location (and would make the adjacent crosswalks less safe by encouraging cars to drive too fast).

by Ben Ross on Jan 25, 2011 1:57 pm • link • report

I don't see how that is a real world solution. First ticketing cars that fail to yield? Flat out won't happen. So what is plan B ? I see traffic light as always green unless the button is pushed, bridge or tunnel as only solutions. Light is the cheapest.

by Mike D on Jan 25, 2011 2:31 pm • link • report

Mike, how is a $150,000 installation cheaper than a revenue positive crosswalk sting?

by JJJJJ on Jan 25, 2011 3:53 pm • link • report

I agree in principle that highway lighting should be reduced, but it should not be eliminated in highway safety corridors. If you cut all the lights and have more accidents, you haven't saved anything.

by movement on Jan 25, 2011 5:12 pm • link • report