10-19-2015 Planning Commission Packet

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COMMENTARY Why we must dim the bright light at night For one thing, blazing city streetlights have little effect on crime, And "skygiow"is hanning both humans and wildlife. By Eric Betz Los Angeles Times nucusT 21,2015—6:07PM Looldng out across Los.Angeles from Mount WiLson Observatory at night,the hills and mountains look like islands in a sea of light,It was here that Edwin Hubble first proved our universe was expanding at a rapid pace.From this vantage point you can still make out the major cons�tellations,but drive into the light bubble and suddenly the cosmos feels awfully far away.The city shines so bright it blocks out the stars,a phenomenon lmown as"skyglow." I.i.ght seeps into the sky from stadiums�malls�paz.�g lots,offices and billboards.But stx'eetlights.with their harsh bulbs,are the worst offenders. The 2L5,000 streetlights in Los Angeles are meant to thwart mare than fumbled keys and stubbed toes—they're a luminous security bianke��or so the Los Angeles gtu-eau of Str'eet LiShting would have you believe.The bureau's slogan:`Bright Lights,Safe Nights." Other c:ihes use the motto,too. We intuitively assume that more lights mean less crime.Indeed,police are often taught that,second to more cops,good lighting is the best crime deterrent Yet decades of research show there's no scientific reason to believe that darker streets are inhei.entiy �. more dangerous.And,increasingly,rese�.che�az.e finding th�t��s light is toxic for '� both humans and wildlife. ' ..'"�� In one study,published July 2g in the 1ourn�of Epidemiology and Cornmunity g�t� i7ttP��stmedia startribune.com�mages/ows_1440197793877 r�SQ3rCL1CTS y OAVID BREWSTER•STAR TRIBUNE examined 14 ears of data from 621oca1 authorities across England and The Milky Way is seen over the countryside Wales,hunting For crime and collision trends among agena�t�t reduced their lighting, near Hendricks,Minn.,as well as wind England's counciLs—1oc�.1 governing bodies—h�ve sought to slash costs and carbon 8enerators with red lights atop and"light emissions in recent yeaxs under pressure from the national government.In response,lOG councils either dimmed or turned of�'some streetlights,affecting an��ated 750,000 lamps altogether. Not everyone is hapPY about the darker sldes.The"great streetlight switch-off'has sparked a political debate,with the country's automobile association asserting that six people have died since 2009 as a direct result and opposition politicians rushing to lay blame. But the health researchers found no link between collisions and lighting,despite studying about 14,500 miles of roads where streetlights were d'unmed,lighted for only part of the night or shut off entirely.They aiso examined Iighting�S�{�on crime,and similarly found no increase in burglary,auto theft,robbery,violence or sexual assault in areas where lighting Po1icY had changed. The scientists published a companion study based on surveys of 520 people living in darkened areas.Many residents said they didn°t even notice the threa.tened by an uptick in crime, ��1��One feel Other studies back up these results.In 1998,for example,Chicago tried to fight crime with a three-phase plan that included upgrading 175,000 streetlights,as well as lights in transit stations and alleys around the city.The city kept experimental cbntrol areas unchanged and found that crune consistently increased in both the well-lighted and the control areas.Illinois crimin�ju�ce o�Q�roncluded that strolling down a dark alley was no more dangerous than doing so in a well-lighted one. All this should make taxpayers uneasy,The Cities at Night project recentiy released a report estimating that the European Union alone spends about$7 billion annually to PoWer streetlights.