{"id":6440,"date":"2026-02-09T12:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/6440\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T12:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:59:09","slug":"denmarks-red-street-lighting-solves-a-problem-every-city-has","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/6440\/","title":{"rendered":"Denmark’s Red Street Lighting Solves A Problem Every City Has"},"content":{"rendered":"

A municipality on the outskirts of Copenhagen has taken an interesting approach with street lighting with the aim to lessen the environmental impact of artificial lighting.<\/p>\n

Gladsaxe Municipality installed red-spectrum LED street lighting along a 700-meter stretch of Frederiksborgvej and the Farum cycle superhighway.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the red street lighting is a balancing act. While the red light still lights the way for cyclists and pedestrians, there is minimized disturbance to wildlife, especially nearby roosting and foraging bats.<\/p>\n

Why it Matters<\/p>\n

Cities<\/a> have adopted different tactics when it comes to street lighting, but all approaches have prioritized bright uniform street illumination for safety. However, evidence shows that this artificial lighting can alter the behavior of nocturnal wildlife.<\/p>\n

Gladsaxe’s red lighting opts to limit the ecological disruption that often comes with white light while still preserving visibility for road users. As far as a trade-off around light pollution goes, the Gladsaxe project provides a potential template.<\/p>\n

Research cited by the project partners indicates red-spectrum lighting is less disruptive to bat activity than short-wavelength white and green light, aligning the installation with municipal biodiversity goals and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals framework referenced by Gladsaxe.<\/p>\n

What To Know<\/p>\n

The Gladsaxe project is part of the EU’s\u00a0Lighting Metropolis program which is using Copenhagen as a ‘living lab’ “to strengthen the significant role lighting can play in supporting safety, accessibility, identity, health, and education for people in cities.”<\/p>\n

During the initial installation in 2022, the lighting design<\/a> used 30 one-meter-high bollards spaced 30 meters apart to project red light that leaves intervening “corridors of complete darkness,” which the designers said allow light-shy bats to cross without exposure while still providing lighting continuity for the bicycle path.<\/p>\n

At locations where cyclists and pedestrians cross the road, the project added 12 poles at 3.5 meters to create a distinct visual environment and improve awareness and safety at those points.<\/p>\n

The red lighting was described as having functional and symbolic value, signaling to passersby that they were in an environmentally sensitive area the municipality intended to protect, and the city engaged residents via local and social media to explain the rationale and goals.<\/p>\n

Partnering design company Light Bureau reported the installation met required lux and uniformity levels in selected sections to support Danish road and cycle-path standards, and the project received a Build Back Better GREEN Award in 2022 for minimizing negative impacts on biodiversity while providing safe passage for road users.<\/p>\n

Newsweek has contacted Light Bureau for comment via email.<\/p>\n

What Happens Next<\/p>\n

Light Bureau stated it intended to continue working with biologists to evaluate whether the red-spectrum approach achieved its intended ecological outcomes, indicating post-installation monitoring and assessment would inform future deployments or adjustments.<\/p>\n

The project is now being viewed as a potential model for other cities worldwide dealing with light pollution and its effects on wildlife, while demonstrating how urban infrastructure can be adapted to meet both human safety needs and environmental goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A municipality on the outskirts of Copenhagen has taken an interesting approach with street lighting with the aim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[1299,27,26,1252,2072,327,5685],"class_list":["post-6440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-denmark","tag-cities","tag-danmark","tag-denmark","tag-design","tag-environment","tag-eu","tag-street-lighting"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}