I work for Mayor Nenshi, ask me anything!

[Bill Bumface]

Gas tax is basically one of the most easy to impliment and fairest types of transportation infrastructure.

You drive a lot and put demand on city roads? You'll pay more because of it.

You drive a really fuel efficient vehicle so it doesn't hurt you too bad? Well fine, good for you for not polluting all over the city.

[V]

Not sure where to put this, but the City has just issued an RFP to supply over 2,000 LED streetlights.

[Drummer]

Originally Posted by V

Not sure where to put this, but the City has just issued an RFP to supply over 2,000 LED streetlights.

Thank God.

[GaiJin]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Gas tax is basically one of the most easy to impliment and fairest types of transportation infrastructure.

You drive a lot and put demand on city roads? You'll pay more because of it.

You drive a really fuel efficient vehicle so it doesn't hurt you too bad? Well fine, good for you for not polluting all over the city.

Thats a really simplistic assumption of peoples habits and uses. For most of the week I fill up my employers vehicle everyday and promptly hit a provincial highway. So now my employers costs increase to deliver goods outside the city. Talk about driving inflation.
This is conversation should really be about the lower levels of Government picking the easiest target, the taxpayer instead of going to the Federal levels to get some of the existing gasoline taxes for transportation projects. Politicians are always yapping about competitiveness, yet continually find ways to make our domestic production less competitive.
Secondly this City in particular has a spending problem, it's like the tennant that bums rides everywhere, borrows food, but always has the latest xbox game, coolest t-shirts and money for concert tickets. The word missing from this city is priority.

[surferguy]

^^^What is on your priority list then?

[worth]

Originally Posted by V

Not sure where to put this, but the City has just issued an RFP to supply over 2,000 LED streetlights.

Epcor was replacing streetlamps on Elbow drive last weekend. Do you know what they were installing?

2,000 seems pretty low, do you know how many streetlights there are in the city?

Are you a local manufacturer? You seem to know a lot about LED technology.

[V]

Originally Posted by worth

Epcor was replacing streetlamps on Elbow drive last weekend. Do you know what they were installing?

2,000 seems pretty low, do you know how many streetlights there are in the city?

Are you a local manufacturer? You seem to know a lot about LED technology.

EPCOR has a contract with the CoC right now to replace a lot (500 I think?) of the streetlight poles that are deemed to be in critical condition. So you probably saw them after they had changed out the pole, and then were installing the light back on the pole.

There are about 100,000 streetlights in Edmonton, and IIRC the number is pretty similar in Calgary.

I'm the maager of engineering with EPCOR Techologies, but my primary focus is exterior lighting. I was the project manager for the LED retrofits in Edmonton where we've installed about 18,000 LEDs so far. I also wrote the specification for the lights that were installed in Lethbridge, of which we've installed about 12,000. There are very few things I would consider myself an expert in, but exterior LED lighting is probably one of those things.

[morgin]

Would you be able to start a seperate topic to discuss LED street lights and give an idea of what's in store? I'm pretty sure I've seen you post about it before but can't find it. If you have any pics on what they look like and info you can share on how they work I think that'd be really interesting to hear. The current yellow ones are all gas, right?

[stampsx2]

Bunk do you know anything about the chapparel landfill? Is it just for construction waste? When is the contract over and what are the plans for it, a park?

[MRCboicgy]

Originally Posted by V

There are very few things I would consider myself an expert in, but exterior LED lighting is probably one of those things.

Did your father teach you everything you know about exterior illumination?

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by V

I also wrote the specification for the lights that were installed in Lethbridge, of which we've installed about 12,000.

I was initially going to reply about the RFP for LED's in Calgary with a remark about how I don't like the Lethbridge lights, so maybe best I do now.

I visited Lethbridge over the holidays and noticed the LED lights right away. For some reason, I had a real hard time with glare as if the actual light itself was a flashlight being pointed at me. They seem to be dimmer in lumens but have less spill light towards the side though and didn't light the driveway/house with a visual cutoff point. This is what confuses me though. With what appears to be less light spilling to the sides, why did I have a hard time with glare? Used to be able to shovel the sidewalk/driveway with the existing lights giving off plenty of light, but this time I was forced to turn on the exterior house lights.

[Clarkey]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Gas tax is basically one of the most easy to impliment and fairest types of transportation infrastructure.

You drive a lot and put demand on city roads? You'll pay more because of it.

You drive a really fuel efficient vehicle so it doesn't hurt you too bad? Well fine, good for you for not polluting all over the city.

You'r fuel efficiency pass kind of kills your first argument that those putting demand on city rules should pay. How many molecules you send into the vast atmosphere has no relation to wear and tear on the road.

[V]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

I was initially going to reply about the RFP for LED's in Calgary with a remark about how I don't like the Lethbridge lights, so maybe best I do now.

I visited Lethbridge over the holidays and noticed the LED lights right away. For some reason, I had a real hard time with glare as if the actual light itself was a flashlight being pointed at me. They seem to be dimmer in lumens but have less spill light towards the side though and didn't light the driveway/house with a visual cutoff point. This is what confuses me though. With what appears to be less light spilling to the sides, why did I have a hard time with glare? Used to be able to shovel the sidewalk/driveway with the existing lights giving off plenty of light, but this time I was forced to turn on the exterior house lights.

Glare from your car, or from walking? Glare is basically the ratio between a point source in your periphery to the ambient light. So you would expect a lot of glare to drivers if there is a lot of light in the 70-90 degree angle from the pole. For pedestrians the light in lower angles will result in more glare. As you said, though, there's very little light trespass, so glare shouldn't be too much of an issue. The lights that were installed have a pretty low glare rating, so I'm surprised to hear about glare issues. As you said, the lumen output is lower for these lights as well, so I wouldn't expect to hear much in the way of glare. Typically comments from residents has been 10:1 in favour of positivity, so you may just need to adjust to the white light.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Clarkey

You'r fuel efficiency pass kind of kills your first argument that those putting demand on city rules should pay. How many molecules you send into the vast atmosphere has no relation to wear and tear on the road.

I'd guess that wear and tear actually correlates closely with CO2 emissions. Heavy truck? More wear and tear, more emissions. Lightweight car? Less wear and tear, less emissions.

Fuel efficiency would correlate less with your contribution to demand for capital expenditures. Possibly not at all, or even inversely.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by SebC

I'd guess that wear and tear actually correlates closely with CO2 emissions. Heavy truck? More wear and tear, more emissions. Lightweight car? Less wear and tear, less emissions.

Fuel efficiency would correlate less with your contribution to demand for capital expenditures. Possibly not at all, or even inversely.

One 40 ton truck does the same amount of road damage as 9600 cars. Car size = exponential potential for damage on the road.

[Clarkey]

[mykalberta]

You say ask you anything...

Were you at the NatGeo Mars event at the Epcor Centre last night?

I saw Chima Nkemdirim there, and I thought there was someone there who might have been you

[CaptainYooh]

Bunk, there are some big things happening at the City Hall with the re-org, I hear. UDD was eliminated??? What's going on down there? Update, please.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by fotze

Hey bunk. Can I assume every manager involved in this was punted instantly?

Googling some of these folks (linkedin), looks like they are still employed by the city.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/20.../21412891.html

I could've missed an update here, but is there one on this whole scenario? I know that council was meeting in camera to go over it, but I never did hear any commentary at all.

[Tyler]

When is the new city manager going to be announced?