Developers, municipalities, architects, and so forth, are tasked with finding the appropriate street light poles for roadways, sidewalks, neighborhoods, and parking lots. Street light poles grant a sense of safety and security that is important to anyone who lives, works, or travels in the area.
Street lights do not guide auto traffic, the headlights on automobiles take care of that. Although, they do offer extra illumination to help drivers recognize their surroundings, navigate areas, and notice potential hazards on the sides of roadways. All in all, they offer an important feature to any roadway.
6 Things to Consider When Installing Street Light Poles
Pole Height
Pole height is an important factor when it comes to street light poles. The height of a pole will alter how it distributes light. The job of a transportation engineer is to configure lights for a street for the best possible light distribution. A road with a higher speed limit generally requires higher-mounted street lights.
Light Consistency
Furthermore, the consistency of lighting is very important. Think about when you walk into a dark room, it takes at least several seconds for your eyes to adjust. The same is true if you’re driving down a well-lit street and then suddenly all goes dark. By placing street light poles at consistently spaced intervals, you can create consistent lighting. It also helps if lights are mounted higher up. Therefore, drivers don’t deal with their eyes constantly adjusting, potentially impairing their ability to see the road clearly.
Don’t Forget About Pedestrians
For pedestrians, it’s important that sidewalks are properly lit up. There are a variety of factors that can create dark spots in an otherwise well-lit street. For instance, trees, large rows of shrubs, odd street angles, parking patterns, or an extra-large building feature. These shadow-makers can appear on residential streets as well as public walkways. It’s important to keep these features in mind when designing lighting fixture placement. The goal is to have as few dark shadowy spots as possible.
As gas prices rise and the push to reduce carbon footprint continues, more people are biking instead of driving. It’s important to focus on the presence or absence of lighting and how it will impact bikers and their ability to safely navigate roadways after dark.
Aesthetic Street Pole Lighting
Street lights can also offer ambiance, adding more beauty and appeal to a space. Say for instance, a well-lit patio where people can dine on delicious food. Or, a pretty and well-lit street lined with trees, homes and gates. Street lighting can be used to accent a historic district, business area, or residential neighborhood. The poles themselves can add a nice touch too. Also, lighting can be used to highlight aesthetic features such as a fountain, garden, statue—you name it.
Street Lighting That Increases Safety & Avoids Glare
In areas that experience high crime, residents and business owners often request additional street lighting to improve safety and deter criminals. Researchers have yet to prove that additional street lights really reduce crime rates. Still, the presence of lighting tends to make people feel safer. While the intentions of lighting are to improve safety, it is possible that too much lighting at high levels can create glare and make people less safe. To prevent glare, use fewer lighting poles that are consistently spaced apart.
Maintaining LED Street Lights
LED lighting is becoming increasingly popular for street lights, as are photocells that turn on and off according to the amount of available daylight. These types of features help save money and power.
The average LED street light runs for 10 to 12 hours a day, and the bulb lasts around 50,000 hours. It’s important to change bulbs as needed. The good thing about installing all light poles at once is that you know to change them all at once.
Check over the actual street poles as well during routine maintenance. It is not unheard of for a light pole to come crashing down unexpectedly due to wear and tear of materials overtime. Many lights poles are made of corrosive materials that slowly break down due to dog urine, high-salinity, and so forth.
You can reduce light pole maintenance significantly by investing in TerraCast lighting fixtures. Our special materials and manufacturing processes (which occur right here in the USA) produce a high-quality light pole that is resistant to corrosion, rust, graffiti, and more.
Shop our wide selection of street light poles.
Old light poles breaking down near the base? This is a very common issue. There’s no need to replace when you can rebase! Our unique bases fit around most standard-sized light poles. Offering a clean and updated look for a fraction of the cost compared to replacing the entire pole. Plus, it provides extra protection to the existing pole so that it lasts longer.
Shop our wide selection of replacement bases for light poles.