Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, originally uploaded by Rick Elkins

From the press office:

At the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge today, a maintenance worker suspended in a bucket truck replaced the first of 262 fifty-pound conventional light fixtures and necklace lights with a new lighter fixture and an energy-saving light-emitting diode (LED) bulb.
The Verrazano-Narrows is slated to be the first among the agency’s seven bridges to have hundreds of LED necklace lights installed in the next year as part of the authority’s environmental program.
These lights will cut necklace light electricity use by 73% and, because they have an estimated 5-to-10-year usage expectancy, the move increases worker safety by minimizing the need to change lights or “re-lamp”, high above traffic, which would require lane closures below and cause delays.

It is admirable that the MTA is working on ways to both save taxpayers money and reduce its carbon footprint. Yet I can’t help but worry that the new lights will be inferior to what is existing. Just look at the Empire State Building’s new LED lighting which lacks some of the drama of the older (and more wasteful) high pressure sodium vapor lights. Nonetheless, LED technology will only improve and I wouldn’t be surprised if in the near-future LED lamps will match and exceed both color rendering and dynamic range of the lamps they are replacing.