Downtown Streetlighting

Roads - Rails - Sidewalks - Bikeways
NEeaster
Metrodome
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Downtown Streetlighting

Postby NEeaster » January 4th, 2016, 6:56 pm

How many of us would agree downtown needs more pedestrian level street lights - core, warehouse district. Now that we're in winter, it is so dark downtown. Even the lights along Hennepin Avenue aren't enough. That's why I especially like the May Clinic Squares building lighting along Hennepin. More buildings downtown should offer more lighting. Even the light rail stations seem dark.

trigonalmayhem

Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby trigonalmayhem » January 5th, 2016, 7:58 am

Not much in this city is pedestrian scaled, including the street lights. They definitely could stand to do a better job on this everywhere, but downtown is particularly disappointing.

bubzki2
Foshay Tower
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby bubzki2 » January 5th, 2016, 9:19 am

What are the major barriers or opponents to street lighting? Cost of lights and installation? Electricity? If you think Minneapolis is bad, come to Rochester sometime. It is downright dangerous.

mattaudio
Stone Arch Bridge
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby mattaudio » January 5th, 2016, 9:41 am

Here's a jumping off page for the city's street lighting policy: http://www.minneapolismn.gov/publicwork ... /index.htm
The whole downtown grid consists of "Pedestrian Street Lighting Corridors" but is subject to a CBD overlay on the map.
I've worked through this policy for neighborhood proposals, generally in "Commercial Node" overlays on the map. There's usually a mix of high (highway-scale) and low (ped-scale) lights, though they seem to be settling on a higher density of all ped-scale lights.

If you look at old photos of Downtown, you'll see the lights have generally been in the same location since the mid-20th century. They used to have really long fixtures (fluorescent?) but on the same type of pole. I think the current state of downtown lighting is more based on inertia and status quo than any contemporary planning effort.

Hopefully that changes. Lower lights require higher density of lights for adequate illumination, and that of course requires new wiring. That happened on Block E, but I'm surprised the city hasn't insisted on meeting this lighting spec as new projects have popped up... Latitude45, the Opus block on 4th/5th Streets, etc. Elsewhere in the city, developers are generally required to meet this spec if the development hits certain thresholds in terms of impacts to the blockface.

Mdcastle
Wells Fargo Center
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby Mdcastle » January 5th, 2016, 10:38 am

Minneapolis is making sure that any street lighting installed meets it's own standards (which are slightly more flexible that state or national standards; for example a typical residential street should average .4 foot-candles by state or national standards; Minneapolis allows the range of .3-.6. Meeting standards and being dark sky compliant means certain aesthetic compromises. At around 45 feet at least some high poles on both sides of the street are required. You can either stagger low poles with high poles (as on newer Minnepaolis installations like Penn and Lyndale), or rely on the high poles only to light the street, and add supplemental pedestrian scale poles (as on 77th in Richfield).

Richfield tried going with only low poles on a the new installation on Portland, and it fails state standards.

mattaudio
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby mattaudio » June 14th, 2016, 8:57 am

I don't think it's been mentioned, but the Chicago Avenue stretch from about 36th to 39th received pedestrian-scale streetlighting a few months ago, as part of some city slush fund for some activities. I inquired with CM Glidden's office, asking if we could formally request future use of this funding for pedestrian-scale lighting at nodes like 46th and Bloomington, but Public Works got involved noting how ridiculously expensive these lights are. I'd have to look through my email chain on the topic, but something like $10,000 a light.

Mdcastle
Wells Fargo Center
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby Mdcastle » June 14th, 2016, 8:16 pm

Seems about right.

grant1simons2
IDS Center
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby grant1simons2 » September 6th, 2016, 9:47 am

Will this have an effect on downtown or the rest of Minneapolis?

http://www.startribune.com/xcel-rolls-o ... 392446741/

mattaudio
Stone Arch Bridge
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby mattaudio » September 6th, 2016, 9:56 am

I'm fairly certain this applies mostly (only?) to the lights that are on wooden utility poles. Does Xcel own any other lights? The city or other jurisdictions manage all the standalone/pedestrian-scale lighting.

seanrichardryan
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby seanrichardryan » September 6th, 2016, 9:59 am

Downtown, no. The rest of the city, yes.

The city leases all the wood pole mounted lights from Xcel, which will be getting upgraded. Any 'special district lighting', basically anything else not mounted on a wood pole is city owned and maintained.
Q. What, what? A. In da butt.

mattaudio
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Re: Downtown Streetlighting

Postby mattaudio » September 6th, 2016, 10:00 am

There are plenty of neighborhoods which have city-owned pedestrian-scale lighting, too. My neighborhood is about half and half.


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