My wife and I received letters on April 21 from VDOT about the Beltway and I-66 lighting projects.  These apparently are identical to letters others have received, as described on the NOVAC e-mail list.  More importantly, I've also received much new information on these projects that I'd like to share with all NOVAC members.  I've summarized this information in a message sent to the NOVAC and VA light pollution lists, and am also providing this copy for publication in the NOVAC newsletter.

On Saturday evening, April 15, I gave a tour of USNO to Jim Harrington and his family.  Those of you who attended the VDOT hearings on the lighting projects in January may recall that he is an engineer for Greiner Woodward Clyde (of Richmond, VA), the contractor for these projects.  It turns out that Jim is the chief engineer for this work. From my discussions with Jim, let me assure you all that he very much understands our concerns about reducing glare and protecting the night sky.  He is quite interested in amateur astronomy and knows how important it is to direct light down.  He claims that reducing glare is his number one concern on these projects.  He also explained that VDOT is now committed to the goal of keeping glare down on these projects and to using good lighting fixtures.  As I'll comment on further below, this attitude is very much in response to the comments and letters they received.

To cut to the chase though, they currently plan to use partial cut-off lighting, i.e. "Mongoose" fixtures from Holophane or similar (the inside joke in this name is that "mongoose" fixtures "eat" "cobra-head" fixtures).  This is the best fixture he could find that still did not require arms over the roadway, and the resulting maintenance problems such arms would cause (they feel you have to close a travel lane to do maintenance if you use full cut-off fixtures).  Information on this fixture is available from Holophane at http://www.holophane.com/Product/BROCHURE/HL-1855.HTM .  It isn't clear to me which version of this fixture they plan to use (there are many versions, from very good, to very poor), but it must be one of the partial cut-off ones.  I personally don't consider this to be the best solution and I told him so.  The advantages of using full cut-off lighting should supersede the added cost of their maintenance.  It also isn't clear why so many other states are able to use full cut-off lighting without having such problems while Virginia does.  Still, this is a few orders of magnitude better solution that what VDOT would probably have come with on its own, and (as John Nusbaum has pointed out on the e-mail list) we should congratulate ourselves for pushing them at least this far.

Some other miscellaneous points learned from Jim:

• The support from VDOT on this is strong.  The issues of reducing glare and protecting the night sky were well received by "Karen", the VDOT person in charge of the projects.  She even agreed that although there was only one manufacturer (so far) of the type of commercial fixture desired, that still it should be used as the specification and any companies making lighting would have to meet it if they wanted to bid on this project.
• They received 59 comment letters by the deadline and received three more later.
• He personally read all of them several times, and summarized the points being made in all of them.  He started to use one as a template that he found had covered about 75% of the issues raised, and only later realized it was mine! His summary has been supplied in writing to VDOT.
• There was no chance of the lighting not being done, because the general assembly and the governor had already authorized it.
• He plans to redo the (poor quality) lighting now in existence at the I-66 and beltway interchange.  Other currently lit interchanges may also be re-done.  Unfortunately he can't redo the god-awful lighting at the US 50 and Beltway interchange because the lighting there is considered to be on US 50.

• They once again cite a US DOT study as showing that roadway lighting has the highest benefit to cost ratio in reducing accidents compared to other highway improvements.  I have not seen this study, but as I pointed out in my letter to VDOT, if it's similar to other such lighting studies, it's likely quite flawed.  If someone could get a copy of this and critique it, and send comments to VDOT, this might help our cause a great deal in the future.
• It should also be made clear to VDOT that the additional cost of lane closures that might be needed to maintain full-cutoff fixtures, is fully justified by the added advantages of such lighting over partial cut-off lighting.  I'm aware that several people recommended that VDOT use lighting arms that would "swing back" so that maintenance could be done on the side of the road - why didn't they use this option if maintenance is a concern?
• A number of other issues raised by myself and others were not addressed in this letter.  For example, there are no comments about why the meetings in January were so poorly announced.  There is also no explanation of why an environmental impact statement was not made--even though this is the only question I specifically asked them to reply to me on.  This for projects whose electricity usage will (conservatively) put 3,700,000 pounds (about 1800 tons) of C02 into the atmosphere yearly, not including any other greenhouse gases.
• They anticipate the plans for this project will be available by late summer at "your local Virginia Department of Transportation Residency Office".  An effort should be made to see these when they come out, and to send further comments to VDOT at that time.

Some final comments here from me on all of this.  First, regarding the VDOT projects, we have shown that we can make a tremendous difference. I'm aware of about 20 letters that went out from NOVAC members and related folks, and there are probably more than this.  That's about one third of the letters they received on these projects.  Clearly, VDOT has gotten the message and now considers glare and uplighting to be an important issue.Secondly, our work is not done.  VDOT should be questioned further about this project (as I have noted above) and future projects.  Finally, a key point here is that the highway projects were authorized by the state general assembly and governor, and no amount of comments after the fact was going to change that.  The only way to stop these projects or to get some serious consideration of whether they are needed is if we all contact our state representatives.  (This goes for you folks in MD and DC too!).

Regards, and clear dark glare-free skies to all,
Brent Archinal