To improve pedestrian and road safety and begin bringing Moab’s Main Street lighting into compliance with the city’s outdoor lighting ordinance, new LED lighting retrofits have been installed on both sides of Main Street between 200 and 300 South. The four fixtures in the north section of the block contain 3000K LED lighting units, or luminaires, and the four lights in the south section are 2400K.
The city is asking residents to compare the color of the lights (which warmth or coolness of light is preferable), color rendering (can colors be differentiated well enough in the light provided) and brightness (do the lights provide improved safety or distracting glare). The public is asked to provide feedback to the city by March 20 by emailing sustainability@moabcity.org.
“This test strip of lights is intended to improve safety on Main Street by directing light where we use it and to reduce light that escapes into the sky,” said Moab City Sustainability Director Alexi Lamm. “Feedback from residents will help decide how Moab lights the rest of Main Street.”
The city owns all the decorative streetlights along Main Street, and the LED retrofits are designed to fit completely inside the light fixture, directing brighter lighting on the ground along the sidewalk and roadway and reducing the amount of light escaping upward into the sky.
The LED retrofits are the first time lighting has been changed in the decorative fixtures along Main Street since the city began developing a dark-sky-compliant outdoor lighting policy several years ago. The new LED luminaires are significantly brighter than the bulbs currently installed along downtown Main Street, and should markedly improve illumination along the roadway and sidewalk.
In addition to meeting dark sky compliance, the retrofitted lights have some distinct advantages over the existing lights, including:
- LEDs use less electricity.
- They last much longer than the current bulbs, requiring less maintenance.
- They will be brighter. The existing fixtures were measured providing 0.4-0.83 footcandles, whereas the new fixtures provide about 1.5 footcandles.