I need to know the number of street lights existing in the United
States.  These are also known as light standards.  The number should
include lights on highways, streets, roads, in residential areas and
in parking lots.

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 07 Mar 2005 15:37 PST

I found an estimate for the number of street lights in the US (in 1999). 

But the source only cites the number, without providing the sort of
details you asked about:  highways vs parking lots, etc.

Would the number alone -- with its source citation, of course -- do the trick?

Let me know.


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by kinginnovation-ga on 08 Mar 2005 10:37 PST

The number alone would be fine, it does not have to have the details
of what type of lighting.

kinginnovation-ga,


Thanks for getting back to me on this.

I conducted a search of Google and of a few newspaper/magazine
databases for the phrase [ "million street lights" ] and related
phrases.   The searches came up with several mentions of the number of
such lights in individual states in the US, and in a few other places
around the world -- mostly from sites dealing with the topic of light
pollution --  but only one statistic regarding the total number of
street lights in the US:


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http://www.nesl.edu/lawrev/vol36/4/Ploetz.pdf

Light Pollution in the United States:
An Overview of the Inadequacies of the
Common Law and State and Local
Regulation

...There are an estimated fifteen million street lights in the United
States, and over sixty million worldwide.
-----


The above article gave the source for that figure as an article from a
newspaper in South Carolina, which I was able to track down:


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THE STATE (South Carolina)
July 9, 1999

Street-Light Device Company to Relocate to Lexington, S.C.


Tom Shackett and Richard Jones are on a mission to make you see the
light -- street light, that is.

The two entrepreneurs, who own SouthConn Technologies, bought one of
the country's top photo control manufacturers and are moving the
operation from Connecticut to Lexington.


.....Shackett estimates there are 60 million street lights worldwide
with 15 million in the United States.

.....SCANA, the parent company of South Carolina Electric & Gas, has
200,000 street lights in South Carolina alone.
-----


So, SouthConn looks to be the original source for the figure.  I
checked the websites of SouthConn and of their photo-control
subsidiary, Ripley PhotoControls at   [ http://www.photocontrols.com/
] but there was no additional information about the source of the
statistics that Shackett cited.


By the way, another statistic popped up for the state of Massachusetts
that I thought might be of interest to you:

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The Boston Globe
October 3, 1999
page 1

Towns see savings in lighting takeover;
State ruling clears Boston Edison deal

..."There are half a million street lights in the state and the
potential for savings is millions, if not tens of millions, per year
for taxpayers," said Steven Rothstein, managing director of National
Energy Choice, a firm hired by MMA to provide services to MunEnergy.
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I hope this information fully meets your needs.  But before rating
this answer, please let me know if there's anything else I can do for
you.  Just post a Request for Clarification, and I'm at your service.

All the best,

pafalafa-ga