In La Rochelle, public lighting switches to winter time, from Sunday night to Monday. The lights will now be turned off between midnight and 5 a.m. One more hour of darkness, since the extinction was operating until then from 1am. This concerns most of the streets of La Rochelle with the exception of the town center and the main roads, which remain lit all night. For the town hall, this adaptation is linked to the low traffic on the streets at night, during winter. The opportunity also to save money.
The deputy PS Christophe Bertaud, “mayor of the night” of this municipality of La Rochelle, took out his calculator. With this change to winter time of the city’s 13,000 light points, “It will save us 24,000 euros per year. But I prefer to say that we will reduce our CO2 emissions by 9 tonnes. And this is consistent with La Rochelle, a zero carbon territory.” Knowing that the bill has already fallen by 27% since the introduction of this fire extinguisher, it was in May 2019.
“Keep lighted paths, to bring back those who go out in the city center”
The measure was decided in the first place in the name of biodiversity. To respect the biological rhythm of plants and animals, disturbed by all this light. As for humans, “there are some residents who do not feel safe, who would like their street to be lit, concedes the elected Rochelais. But these are really isolated cases. “ The proof, advances Christophe Bertaud: for six months, the activity zones are in turn turned off at night, without noticeable reaction.
Safety remains a priority, however promises the “mayor of the night”: “I remain very vigilant so that we can keep lighted paths, which bring home those who go out in the city center”. A priority in particular for the safety of students, and particularly of female students.
– Julien Fleury
Villeneuve-les-Salines, “black point”
From the start, the city center has remained completely lit, even if that is not necessarily justified for certain streets, specifies the deputy. In contrast, the entire working-class district of Villeneuve-les-Salines is deprived of lighting in the dead of night, and it’s a “black dot”, concedes Christophe Bertaud: “because we only had one transformer to supply all of Villeneuve, and we could not compartmentalize. This will be resolved during the first quarter of 2022, which will allow us to leave lit a cycle path that runs along the bus lane. ”
La Rochelle had already adapted its lighting during the curfew at the start of 2021. Modulations made possible by digital technology and a technology, LoRa, which allows La Rochelle tooperate your lighting remotely : “a year and a half ago, to modify the schedules, we would have had to go and reprogram all the transformers one by one, and I believe there are a hundred of them. Today, we are doing it behind a desktop on a screen. “
– Julien Fleury
Next mission for Christophe Bertaud, better coordinate with neighboring municipalities. In Aytré, the lights go out between midnight and six in the morning. 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. during the winter in Périgny. Regarding La Rochelle, the lighting off times will return at 1 to 5 a.m. at the end of March, on the occasion of the return to summer time.