Philadelphia traffic lights to be upgraded

Philadelphia’s traffic lights are going energy efficient and federal recovery money is paying for upgrading to LED’s. Since 1998, the city’s red traffic signals have been high efficiency LED’s and the yellow and green regular incandescent bulbs.

Philadelphia’s traffic lights are going energy efficient and federal recovery money is paying for upgrading to LED’s.

Since 1998, the city’s red traffic signals have been high efficiency LED’s and the yellow and green regular incandescent bulbs.  Steve Buckley, who is deputy commissioner for transportation in the Streets Department, says now that technology has improved and the city is using a federal grant to replace the yellow and green signals with LED’s.

“In doing the greens and yellows, we basically can reduce the power consumption for the greens and yellows by approximately 80 percent what we are doing is swapping out incandescent light bulbs and putting in led lights.”

The upgrade will save the city about a million dollars a year in electricity.  There have been questions about whether ice or snow will melt off LED’s that generate hardly any heat.  Buckley says it is NOT a worry because even during this past snowy winter, the red LED lights stayed clear.