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From the Common Man Digest
A recurring theme of this blog is being green. Today’s news wires are carrying a story that is very exciting!! It seems that the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan is going to replace all of its street lights with LEDs. As we’ve discussed previously in this blog, the LED saves a significant amount of electricity (which equals $$$$$) and lasts approximately 10 years to a 2 year life for a regular incandescent bulb. According to the story, the city expects to recover its costs of installation through energy savings in just 2 years!! This means that the next 8 years of operation (the expected life of the LED) will be money in the taxpayers’ pockets. In addition, it will reduce greenhouse gas production in an amount equivalent to taking 400 cars of the road! Where is the downside on this? Why aren’t all towns and cities looking at doing this?Thoughts anyone?
>Where did you come up with “the equivalent of taking 400 cars off the road”? Did you take a page from Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, which happended to mislead people on 9 “inconvenient untruths”? Environmentalist lobby groups love to throw around statistics that get people emotionally involved. The problem is they often just aren’t accurate.
It all depends on the cost of electricity in a municipality, number of street lights and cost of LED lights. Two year payback sounds pretty quick. How will the up front money be raised? More tax increases? It sounds great to “talk green”. But, the economics don’t always support the idea. Do your homework, demonstrate how it will work in Ridgewood and be able to back up your claim with unquestionable facts. Then come ask for the money.
>how much is this going to be.but the town needs this.
>On the list of priorities for the Village, this item is near the bottom.
>The LED traffic signal heads are nothing new, they’ve been around for about 10 years. The price per unit has dropped considerably since their introduction. They are energy efficient and more visible to motorists than the incandescent bulb types. LED indications can be put in existing signal heads easily. Bergen County and NJDOT have already changed over to LED. Paramus converted over about two years ago and Ridgewood should do the same when funding permits. Sorry, but this is not news.
>All the traffic lights in town work….all the police cars in town don’t….WHERE ARE YOUR PRIORITIES??????????????
>OK people, perhaps you could actually read the article before spouting off. This is from my blog, The Common Man Digest, and it is commentary on an AP News story about what Ann Arbor, MI is doing. It refers to street lights (which Ridgewood is currently in discussion about replacing), not traffic lights. I fowarded it to JP because I know Ridgewood is replacing its street lights and thought maybe it would save some future tax dollars (and help the environment) to use LED instead of flourescent when the lights were replaced. No great conspiracy here…..if you actually read what is written.