For decades, L.A.\u2019s hazy blue days and golden pink dusks have given way to nights speckled with golden orange, where amber streetlights twinkle across hills, valleys and coastal plain like stars in the sky.<\/p>\n
But now, thanks to the harsh LEDs that light much of L.A., an ever-growing number of streets feel more like prison yards when the sun goes down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m under surveillance in my own home,\u201d Linda Chen said.<\/p>\n
Chen said her San Fernando Valley home always felt like a haven \u2014 a quiet slice of suburbia where she and her family could relax at the end of the day. But a few years ago, city workers swapped the orange sodium streetlights outside her house with cold, blue-light LEDs.<\/p>\n
Overnight, her once warm, cozy street felt harsh and hostile. One light shined so brightly into her bedroom that she lost sleep until she installed blackout curtains.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like when you\u2019re on a red-eye flight trying to get some sleep and the person next to you has their reading light on the entire time,\u201d she said. \u201cNot the end of the world, but definitely a nuisance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chen is planning to downsize in a few years, but she\u2019s worried that potential buyers will be turned off by the glaring streetlights hanging over the home, and the property\u2019s resale value will take a hit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess we\u2019ll only do open houses during the day,\u201d she quipped.<\/p>\n
L.A. was an early adopter of LED. By 2013, the Bureau of Street Lighting had swapped more than half<\/a> of the city\u2019s 220,000 high-pressure sodium lamps with LED bulbs, and the department has systematically converted the rest in the years since.<\/p>\n Progress came with some growing pains. At the time, most LEDs on the market were bright and white, so the city went with those. Modern LEDs are warmer, and the color can be adjusted even after they\u2019re installed, but L.A. is stuck with the ones it bought before the technology developed.<\/p>\n The bureau does not have an exact timeline of when LEDs turned up in each neighborhood in the ongoing transformation. In the last year residents in Venice and North Hollywood were the ones to suddenly find their streets lighted up like a Walmart parking lot.<\/p>\n Since the bulbs are more efficient than their predecessors, the overhaul reduces annual carbon emissions by 67,000 metric tons and saves roughly $10 million in energy each year.<\/p>\n But lighting is an intimate affair in this city; Los Angeles has long loved its ornamental and whimsical street lamps. Ribbons of roses curl up the sides of the lights along 6th Street, Chinese dragons hang from the lamps on Olympic Boulevard, and topless women watch over Wilshire Boulevard from their cast-iron perches.<\/p>\n So some Angelenos are rankled<\/a> by the fact that these ornate, historic lamps are spewing hospital light across the city that, in most other regards, cares about the way it looks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Solutions for residents are few. If the city installs an LED light that shoots into your bedroom, your only recourse is to request a glare shield, an accessory fixed to the lamp that blocks the light from certain angles \u2014 but it\u2019ll cost you $350.<\/p>\n In letters to The Times<\/a> several years ago, Joanne from Northridge missed the \u201cmellow yellow\u201d of the old lights. Bob from Simi Valley said that \u201cyou never know what you\u2019ve got till it\u2019s gone.\u201d James from Cypress urged the city to tweak the LED bulbs to mimic the warm sodium ones.<\/p>\n Streetlights near Venice Beach on April 30, 2026. The city of Los Angeles is turning to solar streetlights as it seeks to combat copper wire theft and reduce energy consumption.<\/p>\n Travis Longcore, an adjunct professor<\/a> at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability who studies the effects of artificial night lighting on human health, said that should not be hard to achieve with LED.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s this take out there that all LEDs are bad, but that\u2019s not the case. You can achieve warmer colors with LEDs,\u201d Longcore said.<\/p>\n He said the wrong wavelengths of light can disrupt our natural processes, such as sleep, hunger and production of hormones. A bright sky is a signal that it\u2019s daytime, so getting that signal at night throws all of that out of whack. In 2020, Longcore co-published a study<\/a> linking artificial night light, including blue light emitted by LEDs, to cancer.<\/p>\n Longcore said the issue mostly comes down to color temperature (measured in Kelvins) as opposed to brightness (measured in lumens). The older sodium lights typically had a color temperature of around 1,900 Kelvins, which our brains interpret as warm and cozy, almost like a fire. But many LED bulbs are installed with a much higher color temperature, near 4,000 Kelvins, which our brains interpret as harsh and bright, regardless of how many lumens they\u2019re actually emitting.<\/p>\n So if everyone hates the light blight, why do cities keep installing it?<\/p>\n The Bureau of Street Lighting claims that brighter lights make neighborhoods safer. Its FAQ page<\/a> points to a study claiming that increased levels of lighting in New York City led to a 36% reduction in crimes such as murder, robbery and assault, though many lighting experts dispute that claim<\/a>.<\/p>\n When the city first started installing LEDs in 2009, bulbs were set to 4,300 Kelvins, according to a case study<\/a>. The standard has since been lowered to 3,000 Kelvins, but many fixtures installed before 2016 still operate around 4,000 Kelvins, according to Bureau of Street Lighting director Miguel Sangalang. <\/p>\n Sangalang said color temperature cannot be tweaked since the individual light-emitting diodes in the lamps are manufactured to a specific color temperature and can\u2019t be changed once they\u2019re made. It\u2019s the downside to being at the forefront of change.<\/p>\n Other cities have adopted a more conservative approach. Pasadena, for example, is slowly replacing sodium lights with LEDs, but with a Kelvin ceiling of 2,700 to 3,000.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen L.A. first starting installing LEDs, most vendors only made bulbs with 4,000 Kelvins or even 5,000 Kelvins,\u201d said Richard Yee, an engineer with Pasadena\u2019s Department of Public Works. \u201cNow, they have bulbs where you can easily switch the color temperature.\u201d<\/p>\n Yee said the city actively seeks feedback to avoid public backlash.<\/p>\n \u201cHomeowners care about aesthetics,\u201d Yee said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s businesses or residents, we typically check with folks where the lighting is going to get the thumbs-up before we install anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Longcore says his ideal color temperature is 1,800 Kelvins.<\/p>\n \u201cMaking crosswalks brighter is important to saving lives,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we don\u2019t need to light everything that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Across Southern California, residents are revolting against bright LEDs.<\/p>\n A Reddit user told The Times that her boyfriend got sick of the harsh streetlight obstructing his view of the night sky outside his home in Hemet. <\/p>\n One night in 2022, he sneaked outside and blasted it with orange paintballs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe paint didn\u2019t cover it completely but at least the glare wasn\u2019t as harsh as before,\u201d the user said.<\/p>\n Glendale resident Pavan Moondi said the city swapped his warm streetlights for LEDs in April 2025, and it made his evening walks less relaxing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels a little like an example of hostile architecture in the name of \u2018public safety\u2019 that seems to be happening everywhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Before the lights were switched, Moondi, a filmmaker, shot a few scenes for his upcoming movie \u201cMiddle Life\u201d in his neighborhood specifically because the glow of the amber lights matched the nostalgic vibe of the film. If shot today, the scenes would have a completely different feel.<\/p>\n \u201cFor indies like mine, we\u2019re at the mercy of available light,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope politicians at the local level realize this is an easy and small way to improve the quality of life of their constituents, even if it\u2019s a subtle one. I doubt anyone prefers their neighborhood to be lit like a factory.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s another crisis happening at the other end of the lighting spectrum. A growing number of Angelenos have no streetlights at all.<\/p>\n L.A.\u2019s vast network of streetlights are connected by 27,000 miles of copper wire. Over the last decade, the price of copper has climbed 167%, and copper theft<\/a> skyrocketed 1,200%, leaving thousands of streetlights dark.<\/p>\n Copper theft became so rampant that in 2024 the Los Angeles Police Department launched a specialized unit called the Heavy Metal Task Force to track down thieves. The force led to more than 300 arrests but was disbanded last year due to budget cuts, LAist reported.<\/a><\/p>\n As a result, the city has been swamped with a mounting backlog of streetlight repairs \u2014 more than 33,000. If your streetlight breaks, it\u2019ll take roughly a year for the city to fix it.<\/p>\n Sangalang told The Times in February that the department had only 185 people to service the city\u2019s 220,000 streetlights.<\/p>\n And unlike other city services, which are financed by the city\u2019s general fund, streetlighting is considered a special benefit, which means that only property owners who benefit from streetlights pay taxes for them. The tax has been unchanged since 1996 thanks to Proposition 218, which requires voter approval for increased special assessments, but the City Council recently approved a plan<\/a> to send ballots to homeowners for a vote to raise the tax.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of two strategies the city is taking to solve L.A.\u2019s streetlight crisis. In March, Mayor Karen Bass announced a plan<\/a> to repair and replace up to 60,000 streetlights by harnessing solar power technology, so they\u2019d no longer be reliant on the copper wire that keeps getting stolen. The city has already installed 650 solar lights this fiscal year, Sangalang said.<\/p>\n The initiative will cost $65 million, drawing money and resources that aren\u2019t typically available for streetlighting. So residents and experts are viewing it as an opportunity to finally get the light they want.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the ideal time to address issues of light glare, intensity and color,\u201d Longcore said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worked in other places. In 2020, Longcore worked with Salt Lake City to develop a streetlighting plan that brought warmer colors and less light pollution, and he\u2019s working on a similar plan for Austin, Texas. Other communities, such as Malibu<\/a>, have developed ordinances to reduce glare and artificial light, as has Joshua Tree National Park<\/a>, a star-gazing haven that is designated an International Dark Sky Park.<\/a><\/p>\n The city\u2019s exact plan isn\u2019t clear, but Longcore said if workers are adding solar modules onto existing lamps, they could add glare shields and tune the intensity to fit the location: bright for commercial spaces and crosswalks, dimmer for residential streets. But if they\u2019re replacing entire lamps, they could also tweak the color temperature to match the warmer feel that residents are pushing for.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to make light special,\u201d he said. \u201cIf it\u2019s everywhere all the time, and feels like daytime whenever you\u2019re walking around at night, then it\u2019s not special anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Light and Los Angeles are intrinsically linked. It\u2019s a light that elicits emotion and demands reaction. Filmmaker David…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":781825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2451,195570,19226,319908,33140,182894,6276,2961,65478,45782,319909,8143,224,5337,20038,6475,29095,319910],"class_list":{"0":"post-781824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-city","11":"tag-color-temperature","12":"tag-few-year","13":"tag-golden-streetlight","14":"tag-homeowner","15":"tag-kelvin","16":"tag-l-a","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-lamp","19":"tag-led","20":"tag-led-bulb","21":"tag-light","22":"tag-los-angeles","23":"tag-losangeles","24":"tag-neighborhood","25":"tag-night","26":"tag-street-lighting","27":"tag-travis-longcore"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116538681135693258","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778239044_530_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778239045_579_.jpeg\")
An orange streetlight stands out on a street with LED lamps near Venice Beach on April 30, 2026. <\/p>\n![\"Street](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778239046_252_.jpeg\")
The Bureau of Street Lighting claims that brighter lights, such as these in Venice, make neighborhoods safer. <\/p>\n