San Francisco’s famous New Federal Building on 7th Street (near the pizza-free Flank) might be too green for Platinum LEED status, but at least it illuminates the city at night, what with all these lights burning brightly.
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What happened to Lights Out SF? What happened to Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin’s “lights out” proposal?
Should the Watt Cops be called?
SFMTA likes us! They really like us! That’s the only conclusion one can draw after witnessing the recently installed pedestrian countdown traffic signals on Gough Street.
You see, our Municipal Transportation Agency got some money from the Feds. (Somehow it makes sense for us to send money to Washington so they can send it back to us. Somehow.)
In any event, these new signals should help save lives. (Of course, it’s still an absolute joke that pedestrians on Van Ness don’t have dedicated signals to help them get across four lanes of traffic, but let’s not dwell on that.)
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Hooray.
After last night’s Earth Hour of partial darkness from 8:00-9:00 PM, the lights on the “architectural necklace” of the western span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge came back to life on the north side first. (Unfortunately, didn’t get a look at the troubled eastern span last night - it was probably darkened also.)
You can get the idea of the effect of Earth Hour 2008 in San Francisco by looking at these before and after shots of the Ferry Building taken by talented local photographer Mona Brooks.
The lights on the suspension cables of the western span of one of the busiest bridges in the world are just for decoration, not for navigation safety or whatever. Pretty. They sure make a big difference to the look of San Francisco at night when they are turned off.
Question: Turning off these decorative lights for an hour saves enough electricity to power Al Gore’s house (his actual house, not his San Francisco condo in SOMA that’s visible on the right) for how many minutes?
Answer: About 13 minutes. Let’s work on that math, after the jump.