01-25-2016, 06:00 PM
So I've had a chance to walk the trail a few times now with the lights on and my feelings are mixed.
The positive: Wow! It feels super friendly. Walking home from Uptown on a thin layer of crunchy snow on a well-groomed trail, under those white lights, I felt like I was in a ski resort. The lights also do a pretty good job at casting their light on the rail corridor and not outside it... mostly.
The negative: Wow! That's a lot of light scatter off the snow from those lights, and the colour temperature is very white. The area glows. If I were living adjacent to the trail, I'd be unhappy. Regardless, I am concerned about the potential for sleep disruption and nature disruption and I wish we'd look at yellower (or less blue-intensive) LEDs like the Californian cities in that article are.
I did also walk the trail one early morning, with the lights in dimmed mode. As far as I'm concerned, "dimmed" could be the new "on" and it would still be plenty bright enough.
Happy to have the lights, though.
The positive: Wow! It feels super friendly. Walking home from Uptown on a thin layer of crunchy snow on a well-groomed trail, under those white lights, I felt like I was in a ski resort. The lights also do a pretty good job at casting their light on the rail corridor and not outside it... mostly.
The negative: Wow! That's a lot of light scatter off the snow from those lights, and the colour temperature is very white. The area glows. If I were living adjacent to the trail, I'd be unhappy. Regardless, I am concerned about the potential for sleep disruption and nature disruption and I wish we'd look at yellower (or less blue-intensive) LEDs like the Californian cities in that article are.
I did also walk the trail one early morning, with the lights in dimmed mode. As far as I'm concerned, "dimmed" could be the new "on" and it would still be plenty bright enough.
Happy to have the lights, though.