Update: Between my pov and the next intersection all the OVX's and Model 25 are gone. The only thing still there is the very botton of the polefab base for this model 25
IMO it would make sense to use the old fixtures from other jobs as temporary lighting instead of wasting new fixtures every time. Here they don't use temporary lighting. They only have work lights for the workers (those engine-powered MH floods). Usually there's just no freeway lighting when they're doing the work (and in most cases the old freeway lighting didn't work anyway so it wasn't like the highway was all of a sudden dark after years of being lit). On non-freeway roads the lighting is usually on wood utility poles, and those lights and arms usually get transferred over to the new poles, though I know of instances where they install new lights and arms with the new poles.
It's pretty wasteful IMO too. The originals will be taken down then they put up new fixtures for temporary use. Then scrap them in some cases. Since as far as I know they aren't putting up LED, I don't see why they couldn't put the old lights back on new poles, or even temporary for that matter. I have seen a few times where there will be a little wallpacks in the road construction for temporary worker use. Your city seems to be more efficient and doesn't waste fixtures.
Here the lights are owned by the electric company, so the city doesn't own the lights. They do dictate where the lights are placed, though they must be place on an existing wood pole, unless the city has underground utilities, in which case metal poles are used. RIDOT (RI's equivalent to the MTO) owns most of the freeway lighting here but a good portion is owned and maintained by the electric company (well, supposed to be maintained at least; the lights owned by NGrid typically don't work).
In some cases, we may as well have no lights here since a lot don't even work. It's just a waste of taxpayer dollars to install so many freeway lights and then not maintain them. They're pretty good with maintaining the new relay-controlled installations, but the PC-controlled ones forget it... The LEDs should at least keep the RIDOT lighting systems going, though we have a high light pole fatality rate around here since RIDOT and NGrid like to install the pole bases right along the edge of the shoulder. If they set the poles back a few more feet they wouldn't have so many knock-downs. And LEDs are expensive too, so they probably won't bother replacing those knock-down poles.
Yeah same thing dictates here too. Its pretty rare here that streetlights and poles get reused refurbished. Some contractors here have a history of using older fixtures such as , OV-25's and OV-15's for pole knockdowns to as close as 2012. Then it was AE 125's that were replacing knockdowns like crazy, and now its just OVF and OVY's being used for knockdowns. The lighting here is pretty well maintained, I have a few city light complaints, This OV-15 has been dead for 2 years and I reported it once. Still nothing. Meanwhile that light didnt get fixed, This R47 (which is now an AE 115) and This what was an R37 before was replaced ! For some reason that OV-15 still hasn't been touched.
There havent been any LED knockdowns here that im aware of, but I know of a Cooper LED NVN that broke off and a new Cooper LED NVN was installed a few weeks after.
They were pretty quick when I reported This OVX for being out for 4 months. It wasn't replaced so it was probably the PC or something that didn't work.
So for the most part they are pretty good here with burn't out or cycling streetlights
Ah that was cool that they used some refurbished lights at one point. They never did that here, even back in the 60s and stuff. The wood pole lights are pretty well-maintained here. There's cyclers here and there but i report almost any light i see not working properly so they get fixed. If I didn't report them they would probably go months (or years) without being fixed. RIDOT lights don't have pole numbers so it's impossible to report individual lights. I only report RIDOT lights if the whole string is out (I think they use fail-off PCs in their relay boxes, so sometimes the whole interchange will be out, in which case I email customer service saying "The lights at Interchange X on Route Y don't work at night". All NGrid lights have a pole number, be it wood pole or metal pole. The issue with the NGrid freeway lights is that a police detail is required to fix the lights so NGrid just neglects to fix them. RIDOT plants to replace all the remaining NGrid owned lighting systems with their own relay-operated systems so that way they get metered for actual energy usage and not estimated usage (with the NGrid lights, the lights that haven't worked for 10+ years are still being billed to the state as if they worked; aka RIDOT is being charged for lights that don't work, and in some cases, lights that don't even exist due to pole knockdown.) Also, RIDOT can have a lighting curfew with the relay-controlled lights which saved more energy, wen lights shut off around 12AM or 1AM and come back on at 5AM.
Model 25, that OVX out for months is in my neck of the woods. Did you also notice all the others supercycling in that area this winter (400W ovx's)? Also just around the bend on Conestoga Dr, two ael115's are dead on Sandalwood. I do not OXV cyclers, because another will just spring up...
Our traffic light contractor puts OVY's on their pole knockdowns, but the general pole maintenance contactor uses AEL115/OVX's. A line of high poles oddly using 250W had a knockdown replaced with a low pole+ael115, This pole is gone.
@Mike, didn't RIDOT used to reuse the poles and streetlights during a construction project? Here people report the lights out as well, but Ive seen inspector crews sometimes. They will go around on a street and open up every fixture in an area and change the bulb and what not, its basically a maintenance. Some of our older lights don't have pole numbers or wattage's on them so its harder for people to report them. Most of our newer ones are easier to report. They will have "City Of Brampton" with a pole number ID. Im not too sure how our city does our energy costs. I think its actual energy use though. Here it would be deemed unsafe if we had our streetlights off at a certain time. There's almost always cars going somewhere on the main roads at least. So there probably wouldn't be a point in shutting them off at certain times.
m@, Yeah I have seen some of those cycling OVX's a few weeks ago. There's also one OVX with a black PC thats been constantly on for a month atleast. I don't know if its still staying on presently. I haven't seen the dead AE 115's yet, is it the median aluminum pole 115's?
Steeles has a short AE 115 here now. They went on a large pole replacing spree. Anything east of that train bridge is tall 6" OVX's. West of the Train bridge is Tall 6" AE 125's. Besides the 6" FCO AE 125's.
There was also a new FCO AE 125 that just showed up a few weeks ago about right here somewhere. I believe its just on a short steel pole.
RIDOT will reuse poles to replace knockdowns, but the lights are always new AFAIK. Ah they never replace working lamps here. Even during a group-relamp, the remaining working lights are untouched. That goes for NGrid and RIDOT. NGrid doesn't ask for wattage when reporting a light, but I usually add it in the comment section. Here's the NGrid Street Light Repair form.
If the lights have individual PCs, then they're most likely not metered and billed on an estimated usage basis. If the lights are connected right to the overhead feed with no meter anywhere then they're billed on estimated usage. With underground wiring it's harder to tell, but if there's PCs then most likely they're not metered. Relay-controlled lights are pretty much always metered (I don't know of any exceptions but maybe there's one or two out there) and the meter is attached onto the contactor-relay box. The lighting curfew is on freeways only, not regular roads. There is traffic all night here too, but the amount of traffic drops steeply between 12AM and 5AM according to RIDOT's studies (Click here for the PDF RIDOT published about the curfew.)
Ah yeah we're having dayburning issues here with the newer photocells. They're Sun-Tech (Fisher Pierce brand) and just SUCK!
BTW, here's the most recent RIDOT installation. The same size davits they've been using since the 90s but now they're using LEDs. These particular LEDs are LeoTek LEDs. No more 400W HPS FCO cobraheads, except for spot replacements.
If the pole is crushed or hit then I assume a new one goes up unless the pole is sectional (like our Polefab poles) and just replace the crushed/dented part so you have a nice shiny section that really stand out
As m@ once said there's an OVX that appears to have a large black PC, Its been dayburning since at least June 2014! Its still going now in March 2015. (...) the streetview to it and see if you think its a Black PC or if its a PC wrapped in something. I think its only on 24/7 because it senses its always dark. A third opinion never hurts
Maybe RIDOT will use LED on all you're freeways now? Our highways are still all HPS but theres been some LED testing on some highmasts in Vaughan. Super size waffles
Ah you have to call in the outages? I hate talking on the phone so I wouldn't be reporting lights here if they didn't have the online form. If the pole is there and in good shape they'll reuse it but in most cases the pole is left on the side of the freeway and mysteriously disappears within a month. When they finally come around to fix up the lighting (relamp, etc) they end up needing to grab another pole (sometimes they're new, other times used, but they don't usually match the originals. For some reason they like to use long davit arms to replace short davit arms, yet they still install new short davit arms. Here's an example of such a case.
Your link to the OVX doesn't work BTW. If the light is on 24/7 (aka dayburning) then the photocell is either dead (when the PC dies, the light is usually on 24/7 as a result). If the PC is wrapped in tape for whatever reason and it's covering the PC window, then yes, that would cause it to not shut off.
I think they will slowly start to swap out the lights at HPS interchanges for LEDs in the next couple of years. They're actually still installing HPS spot-replacements and the lights at a new interchange are HPS (though they're not cobraheads). RIDOT takes MUCH better care of the newer relay-controlled systems than they do with their PC-controlled systems. All NGrid systems have individual PCs and use tapered elliptical and truss arms. RIDOT poles are all davits (with very few exceptions).
Yeah some cities still require you to call in the outages but I believe Markham has a online form that you can use to report outages. Aside from that one LED highmast at the 400/407 interchange in Vaughan most MTO lighting is still HPS. In fact they replaced a few poles over the summer and put up new HPS lights lol.
I wish our city would move on to a form. It would be a lot more ideal. Does that LED highmast still have all its LED's working still or are most of them burned out?
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In some cases, we may as well have no lights here since a lot don't even work. It's just a waste of taxpayer dollars to install so many freeway lights and then not maintain them. They're pretty good with maintaining the new relay-controlled installations, but the PC-controlled ones forget it... The LEDs should at least keep the RIDOT lighting systems going, though we have a high light pole fatality rate around here since RIDOT and NGrid like to install the pole bases right along the edge of the shoulder. If they set the poles back a few more feet they wouldn't have so many knock-downs. And LEDs are expensive too, so they probably won't bother replacing those knock-down poles.
There havent been any LED knockdowns here that im aware of, but I know of a Cooper LED NVN that broke off and a new Cooper LED NVN was installed a few weeks after.
They were pretty quick when I reported This OVX for being out for 4 months. It wasn't replaced so it was probably the PC or something that didn't work.
So for the most part they are pretty good here with burn't out or cycling streetlights
Our traffic light contractor puts OVY's on their pole knockdowns, but the general pole maintenance contactor uses AEL115/OVX's. A line of high poles oddly using 250W had a knockdown replaced with a low pole+ael115, This pole is gone.
m@, Yeah I have seen some of those cycling OVX's a few weeks ago. There's also one OVX with a black PC thats been constantly on for a month atleast. I don't know if its still staying on presently. I haven't seen the dead AE 115's yet, is it the median aluminum pole 115's?
Steeles has a short AE 115 here now. They went on a large pole replacing spree. Anything east of that train bridge is tall 6" OVX's. West of the Train bridge is Tall 6" AE 125's. Besides the 6" FCO AE 125's.
There was also a new FCO AE 125 that just showed up a few weeks ago about right here somewhere. I believe its just on a short steel pole.
If the lights have individual PCs, then they're most likely not metered and billed on an estimated usage basis. If the lights are connected right to the overhead feed with no meter anywhere then they're billed on estimated usage. With underground wiring it's harder to tell, but if there's PCs then most likely they're not metered. Relay-controlled lights are pretty much always metered (I don't know of any exceptions but maybe there's one or two out there) and the meter is attached onto the contactor-relay box. The lighting curfew is on freeways only, not regular roads. There is traffic all night here too, but the amount of traffic drops steeply between 12AM and 5AM according to RIDOT's studies (Click here for the PDF RIDOT published about the curfew.)
Ah yeah we're having dayburning issues here with the newer photocells. They're Sun-Tech (Fisher Pierce brand) and just SUCK!
BTW, here's the most recent RIDOT installation. The same size davits they've been using since the 90s but now they're using LEDs. These particular LEDs are LeoTek LEDs. No more 400W HPS FCO cobraheads, except for spot replacements.
If the pole is crushed or hit then I assume a new one goes up unless the pole is sectional (like our Polefab poles) and just replace the crushed/dented part so you have a nice shiny section that really stand out
As m@ once said there's an OVX that appears to have a large black PC, Its been dayburning since at least June 2014! Its still going now in March 2015. (...) the streetview to it and see if you think its a Black PC or if its a PC wrapped in something. I think its only on 24/7 because it senses its always dark. A third opinion never hurts
Maybe RIDOT will use LED on all you're freeways now? Our highways are still all HPS but theres been some LED testing on some highmasts in Vaughan. Super size waffles
Your link to the OVX doesn't work BTW. If the light is on 24/7 (aka dayburning) then the photocell is either dead (when the PC dies, the light is usually on 24/7 as a result). If the PC is wrapped in tape for whatever reason and it's covering the PC window, then yes, that would cause it to not shut off.
I think they will slowly start to swap out the lights at HPS interchanges for LEDs in the next couple of years. They're actually still installing HPS spot-replacements and the lights at a new interchange are HPS (though they're not cobraheads). RIDOT takes MUCH better care of the newer relay-controlled systems than they do with their PC-controlled systems. All NGrid systems have individual PCs and use tapered elliptical and truss arms. RIDOT poles are all davits (with very few exceptions).