S|L stands for Street Light!

Have you noticed white sprayed circles marked with S|L along S. Edgewood St., 16thSt. S and S Barton St.? Well yes, they are coming: New Street Lights! We have talked about them some time ago and we have had a presentation at a board meeting almost a year ago. Past July the Arlington County Board approved to fund $3.3 million worth of projects proposed by the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Commission within our County’s Neighborhood Conservation Program. The Columbia Heights Streetlight project was one part of this with a cost of $357,000. The new “Carlyle” lights will replace the old “Colonials” we have today. No doubt, this is an improvement of the overall appearance of our streets. It’s also obvious that this public investment is almost exclusively to the benefit of our AV residents. Hence we should welcome this decision and also appreciate the work of our representative (AV Board Director Ed Miltenberger) with the Columbia Heights Civic Association who was instrumental for this outcome. Here is some more detailed information about the new street lights:

Where are the street lights going to be placed?

Check the little map on the left.

What about 13th Rd. S  and  S Cleveland St. ?

They haven’t been included in this project. We (AV and its representative at the Civic Assoc. fought hard for their inclusion, but funding wasn’t available in this round)

How many lights will be installed?

45 in total according to the project description. They replace aprox. 38 old lights. Residential spacing in Arlington is according to norms every 100=120 feet. (Check current light inventory and placement on the 07 Neighborhood Report)

Are 45 lights really so expensive? $350,000, almost $8,000 each?

Apparently they are. The biggest expenditure block refers to boring for new cable conduits and new wiring. For the most part it’s a new installation. The cost break down is disclosed in the project description. The visible parts: poles and luminaries as such and their specific installation account only for aprox. 25% of the total cost.

“Carlyle” lights?

Carlyle is the standard design in Arlington County for residential street lights. Our lights will be aprox. 12 feet high, thus, lower than the existing colonial lights. Closer to the ground lighting is more precise, and less disperse. Should a light be too close to a window, special shields can be installed towards the building. Standard light source will be a sodium vapor lamp, hence expect the standard orange colored light. However it should be a significantly less bright light than our stronger AV security lights (Residential Carlyle lights carry  a 7oW lamp and render aprox.5000 Lumens as opposed to our standard 150W lamps and 14,000 Lumens respectively). I couldn’t find any specific information about the new luminaries being retrofittable with LED, low consumption light sources. One would hope that they are, since this is a strengthening trend that clearly makes environmental and economic sense. Arlington is currently running an experiment with LED lights in 5 locations. Critics have questioned the “dark sky compliance” of the Carlyle lights in the past (the luminary disperses too much light outside the specified useful downwards-light-cone area, thus contributing to light pollution ~ yellow haze).

Will trees be damaged?

The county says that the way these lights are installed minimizes the risk of damage to trees.