NEW STREET LIGHTING

Taranaki Daily News, 2 September 1933, Page 7

NEW STREET LIGHTING

STITT, IN EXPERIMENTAL STAGE. CHRISTCHURCH WATCHES POSITION Christchurch, Aug. 30. Stress on the fact that the new street lamps were still in the experimental stage, and that it was doubtful if they could be obtained even if they were ordered, was laid by Mr. E. Hitchcock, general manager of the Municipal Electricity Department, when commenting to-day on the suggestion by Mr. R. B. Owen at yesterday’s meeting of the Christchurch Beautifying Association that the City Council should go into the question of installing the new system, thus doing away with unsightly overhead wires and poles. Mr. Hitchcock said that the lamps had been considered by the Electricity Committee of the council several times, and that he himself had reported concerning them on his return from abroad.. The new lamps have been experimented with by the British General Electric Company in England and by the Philips Lamp Company on the Continent. In the lamps, which are being experimented with in England under the direction of Dr. Clifford C. Paterson at the G.E.C. laboratories at Wembley, lighting is Provided by a cord of intensely brilliant light, six inches long and a quarter of an inch wide, in a glass tube contained within another glass tube. Cases in the tube are agitated by a current passing through it, the agitated gas glowing with an even light that is almost like daylight. The new lamp eliminates the perilous “pools of daylight” between lamp-posts and enables motorists to drive without headlights and pedestrians and cyclists to move in absolute safety. Mr. Hitchcock pointed out that it was estimated that it would cost £5 a lamp to fit the globes to existing equipment in the Old Country. Great Britain had 179,000 miles of road which was dangerous at night, and to have one of the lamps for every 50 yards it would cost £31,325.000. To instal new equipment, ot course, would cost very much more. . Such lighting might be introduced m a closely-populated and wealthy country, but the cost probably would be prohibitive in a city ■ the size of Cnristchurch. In Christchurch we had series street lighting, whereas the lamps were not made for series lighting, but for the parallel system. Alterations would be necessary to deal with this difficulty. However, the lamps were, only being experimented with so far in England. One type of the lamp had been installed along Watford Road, Wembley,, in March, and in July another Installation threequarters of a mile long was . made in High Street, Croydon. British local bodies, however, were inquiring about