What Research Should You Believe? Cities Should Think Twice Before Turning Off Street Lights To Reduce Carbon Footprint

Main Category: Water - Air Quality / Agriculture
Article Date: 13 May 2009 - 3:00 PDT


Last year during Earth Hour, the City of Kingston delayed turning on some street lights until 9 pm to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But a review of 15 published studies by the Cochrane Collaboration warns that municipalities should think twice about such a practice. The studies showed that street lighting reduced total crashes by between 32% and 55%, and fatal injury crashes by 77%. "In the United Kingdom, an increasing number of local councils are looking to turn off some public street lighting in a move to reduce costs and carbon emissions.

The potential adverse road safety effect of such a policy should be carefully considered in light of our findings," said lead researcher, Fiona Beyer, of the Institute of Health and Society at the University of Newcastle in the U.K. CIHR is a partner in the Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre.

Did you know: The typical Canadian municipality spends about one-third of its energy budget on street lighting. This can be as high as 75% for smaller, rural municipalities.

Source
Canadian Institutes of Health Research

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