By the end of the year we'll be clear to make night landings on the Gardiners Creek trail. According to a City of Stonnington media release:
Solar powered LED based technology will be installed along 650 metres of the trail, between Dunlop
Street and Winton Road, Malvern East. One hundred lighting studs will be installed in pairs along the
edges of the trail. The lights will flash in darkness, while a tilted reflector will return light of bicycles
towards the rider on approach.
I don't know what lighting studs are, but by the sound of that description I suspect they're a bit like Cat's Eye or Bott's Dot road reflectors. And a quick fiddle about on Google seems to confirm that: Flight Light, AquaTech, and Dabmar offer products that seem to match.
Talking themselves up, the council reckons:
As the first of its kind in Australia, the use of the technology may lead to a new way for Councils to
provide safe, inexpensive and unobtrusive illumination on bike and walking paths within a wide range
of environments.
Maybe. Although it might not be what many residents were thinking of when they expressed "concerns about the night time safety of the Gardiners Creek Trail due to lack of lighting". It seems likely they might have been thinking about personal safety from assault and such like, rather than personal safety from wandering off the path in the dark. Nevertheless, well done to the council for taking this interesting initiative.
The installation work will take place from September to November, so it might be this time next year before we can truly see the effectiveness of the idea. I only hope these things are going to be well attached to the ground, otherwise I can see someone thinking "Gee, they'd look really good in my driveway" and collecting them with a spade.
Comments
I look forward to hearing from you at a later date about the success of these lights.
We have a section of bicycle path along the Cooks River in Sydney in Burwood Council area that is lit by solar-powered overhead lights at night. They are certainly not as bright as the usual street-lights, and they only seem to last for a few hours, which is great in summer, but not so great in winter.