MODERN STREET LIGHTING By F. H. Winkley, Street Lighting Specialist, General Electric Co., Schenectady, New York Various phases of engineering enter into the construction of a modern street or thoroughfare. The engineer who specializes in street surfacing is primarily interested in the sub-structure and the covering; the sanitary engineer in the sewer system that underlies it; the city planning engineer in its dimensions, in its ornamental features and in its utility as part of a general scheme of facilitating travel; the illuminating engineer in its lighting, and so on. Each is particularly interested in the phase that is related to his own field. He judges the street by whether the pavement is well constructed, whether it is equipped with proper sewers, whether it meets traffic conditions, or whether it is well lighted, as the case may be. He is apt to overlook the fact that the real basis of judgment is whether all these factors have been satisfactorily handled. The street is a good or bad street, from a construction standpoint, in proportion to the extent to which each of these items is good or bad. Moreover, this is the basis on which, to a large extent, the public will render its judgment. Hence every engineer concerned with street construction should be interested in each of these factors, and should do what he can to see that satisfactory work is done in each respect. And street lighting should have a conspicuous place in this. Upon it depends the safety and comfort of traffic over it by night, the security and comfort of those who live or have places of business on it, and the safety of their property. Modern street lighting is the result of constant progress and has reached a high state of efficiency. In its beginning the illumination of thoroughfares might well have been termed interrupted darkness. That was when the old open arc lamp was located at street intersections and simply acted as a marker. In all probability it was sufficient when Old Dobbin was the prime mover in the vehicular world, but during the last twenty years urban transportation conditions have changed very materially. The fact that there are something more than fifteen Mt. Vernon, N. Y.-Second Street and South Fourth Avenue. Illuminated by Form 8 Ornamental Novalux Unit with No. 109 Alabaster Ripple Globe, 1109 Canopy Novalux Unit with No. 104 Alabaster Rippled Globe, 1104 Canopy million automobiles in the United States has necessitated many changes in the width of streets, in the paving, and also in the illumination of thoroughfares. Systems of first and second class business streets, boulevards, residential streets and highways have been worked out by city planning commissions; and illuminating engineers, with the co-operation of the architects, have designed lighting equipment suitable for these various types of thoroughfares. The appalling number of traffic accidents makes better street lighting a civic necessity of first importance. In 1923, 22,600 persons were killed, 678,000 were injured and $600,000,000 of economic loss was incurred in traffic accidents. Statistics indicate that poor illumination was responsible for more than 17 per cent of the accidents that occurred at night. The protection against accidents that proper lighting provides has not been equitably distributed. There has been a tendency to illuminate adequately our principal business streets and to neglect the secondary business and the residential street and the boulevards. This has been and still is, where it is followed, a poor policy. It is a policy that is being changed by progressive cities however. There has been a similarly unwise and unjustified division of the tax dollar. Analysis shows that hardly three cents of it is expended for street lighting an amount which when the importance of thoroughfare illumination is given the consideration to which it is entitled, is altogether too small. The average sum per capita expended by municipalities in the United States for street lighting is less than one dollar. It should be about three dollars. The illumination of our highways is a subject that should be given consideration by those in attendance at this convention. A few years ago illuminating engineers were asked by automobile club officials to design automobile headlights which would entirely eliminate the objectionable glare which causes so many traffic accidents. The glare was eliminated, but the headlight is ineffective. In order to have the proper pick-up distance on an automobile headlight, a certain amount of glare is absolutely necessary; and as long as this cannot be eliminated, the illumination of the highways is the only offset. Highway lighting units which overcome this glare have therefore been |