Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

slozza1
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Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby slozza1 » Thu May 17, 2018 9:54 am

Hi i would like your thoughts on in-ground solar powered LED pavement lights for bike-paths. do you think they would encourage you to ride more often during the night.

Also for those in Victoria, Australia. If you have seen any around could you please list a few locations. I am very interested in gathering information about them and wish to investigate them further.

This also applies for any locations around Australia.

Thanks

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g-boaf
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby g-boaf » Thu May 17, 2018 11:19 am

slozza1 wrote:Hi i would like your thoughts on in-ground solar powered LED pavement lights for bike-paths. do you think they would encourage you to ride more often during the night.

Also for those in Victoria, Australia. If you have seen any around could you please list a few locations. I am very interested in gathering information about them and wish to investigate them further.

This also applies for any locations around Australia.

Thanks
They could be useful on my local cycle way which is very dark at night. But I have my own lights.

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antigee
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Location: just off the Yarra Trail but not lurking in the bushes

Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby antigee » Thu May 17, 2018 12:45 pm

slozza1 wrote:..........................
Also for those in Victoria, Australia. If you have seen any around could you please list a few locations. I am very interested in gathering information about them and wish to investigate them further...........


Thanks
In Melbourne on south side of River Yarra between around Herring Island / Como Park thru to the McRobertson bridge probably other places as well that have been rebuilt reasonably recently. Work well for me.

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Thoglette
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby Thoglette » Thu May 17, 2018 1:00 pm

slozza1 wrote:Hi i would like your thoughts on in-ground solar powered LED pavement lights for bike-paths. do you think they would encourage you to ride more often during the night.
Use your favourite search engine (or http://scholar.google.com) - no "I think" required. There's a huge volume of literature on how to make "safe" environments.
P.S. Appropriate lighting is on the list.
Stop handing them the stick! - Dave Moulton
"People are worthy of respect, ideas are not." Peter Ellerton, UQ

Neddysmith
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby Neddysmith » Thu May 17, 2018 1:35 pm

dont know where they are, but i have lights and would make zero difference to me.

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Daus
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby Daus » Thu May 17, 2018 2:26 pm

They would have to be vandal proof making the cost prohibitive. Good idea though it would be good on shared paths around here with the walkers and joggers.

Cyclophiliac
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby Cyclophiliac » Thu May 17, 2018 2:38 pm

Daus wrote:They would have to be vandal proof making the cost prohibitive. Good idea though it would be good on shared paths around here with the walkers and joggers.
They'll never be vandal-proof. Not much will prevent some idiot spraying them with paint and rendering them useless.

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PA
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby PA » Thu May 17, 2018 3:52 pm

There is a path that we sometimes use that has in ground LED marker lights and Solar LED Post lights, the majority of them are broken and it's not in a bad area.
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MichaelB
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby MichaelB » Thu May 17, 2018 4:16 pm

Neddysmith wrote:dont know where they are, but i have lights and would make zero difference to me.
Same for me. I ride on the road and have (good) lights, so don't need anything else.

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bychosis
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby bychosis » Thu May 17, 2018 4:30 pm

I wouldn't want the lights to be shining upwards. Overhead lighting is much better IMO.
bychosis (bahy-koh-sis): A mental disorder of delusions indicating impaired contact with a reality of no bicycles.

BJL
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby BJL » Thu May 17, 2018 5:15 pm

Gardiners Creek Trail near Melbourne (in the Glen Iris area from memory) had in ground lights last time I rode along there at night. I don't recall seeing them anywhere else. They aren't particularly bright. Only enough to make out where the trail is. They're a bit of a novelty for me and have no effect on the amount of night riding I do.

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uart
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby uart » Thu May 17, 2018 5:30 pm

bychosis wrote:I wouldn't want the lights to be shining upwards. Overhead lighting is much better IMO.
I think of it as more just delimiting the boundaries of the path (so that you easily can see the bends up ahead etc). Low power (or low power density) lighting would be ok in ground for this purpose, but it's going to be difficult to satisfy the dual needs of making it both vandal proof and easily maintainable.

Jmuzz
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby Jmuzz » Thu May 17, 2018 6:38 pm

My path has proper overhead lights, which is great.
But not the best use of money for cycling which has mandatory lights anyway, they spend a lot of time maintaining them.

Would like to see more public education encouraging walkers to use lights and reflectives when on shared paths.
Not mandatory, that's just too restrictive on freedom to walk.
Cheap USB charging red lights are only a few dollars as is reflective tape and iron on transfer.

Scott_C
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby Scott_C » Thu May 17, 2018 7:07 pm

The West Australian Department of Transport hosted one of the designers of the Hovenring (that cycling roundabout bypass in Eindhoven that you would have seen photos of in every aspirational cycling plan) and posted the slides online here (10MB PDF warning):
https://www.transport.wa.gov.au/mediaFi ... tation.pdf

You miss a fair bit from not having the presentation to go with them (I'd recommend having flick through the whole pack if you are from an engineering, design or construction background) but the lighting details on pages 75 to 81 (particularly page 80) shows how they integrated LED lighting with the handrail system to provide an appropriate level of ground and atmospheric lighting that is continuous and soft and doesn't suffer from the bright spot/dark spot nature of traditional overhead lighting systems.

Something analogous to this would seem to be the ideal solution for PSP lighting, illuminating both the path and any people on it but without interfering with night vision and with minimal light leakage.

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MattyK
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Re: Solar powered LED in-ground pavement lights

Postby MattyK » Thu May 17, 2018 9:10 pm

BJL wrote:Gardiners Creek Trail near Melbourne (in the Glen Iris area from memory) had in ground lights last time I rode along there at night. I don't recall seeing them anywhere else. They aren't particularly bright. Only enough to make out where the trail is. They're a bit of a novelty for me and have no effect on the amount of night riding I do.
Yes on gardiners creek, continuing on to scotchmans creek at least as far as warrigal Rd.

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