Street Lights

The roar of cars and trucks drowned out conversation Saturday morning as a group walked toward the 210 Freeway ramp on North Lake Avenue in Pasadena. The sidewalk narrowed and the street widened. Along the way, tree roots had heaved the sidewalk upward. It was hardly a welcoming route to the Gold Line light rail station, built in the median of the 210, said Marsha Rood, a Pasadena resident.

The rampant theft of copper and other metals in Southern California has begun hitting Inland Empire freeways hard, leaving motorists in increasing danger as traffic signals and lights in underpasses and rest areas have gone dark, law enforcement and Caltrans officials said Tuesday. Thieves also have swiped guardrails and irrigation systems along roadways.

Southern California Edison Co. is taking a first step toward supporting municipal wireless Internet networks after holding up such projects in cities throughout the region for more than 18 months. The state's second-largest power utility has agreed to let EarthLink Inc. build a small network using Edison streetlights in Santa Ana as part of a wider-ranging trial of wireless gear. "This is long overdue," said Esme Vos of MuniWireless.com, an authority on such high-speed wireless projects.

The Sydney Opera House's gleaming white-shelled roof was darkened Saturday night along with much of Australia's largest city, which switched off the lights to register concern about global warming. The arch of Sydney's other iconic structure, the harbor bridge, also was blacked out, along with dozens of skyscrapers and countless homes in an hourlong gesture that organizers said they hoped would be adopted as an annual event by cities around the world.

Thieves have disabled about 700 streetlights in Los Angeles, making off with 370,000 feet of valuable copper wiring over the last four months. L.A. officials said it is a twist on copper thefts that have plagued new home sites and even some office buildings in the last few years. With some lights pilfered during the summer still out, city officials Tuesday expressed concerns about the safety of passing drivers, pedestrians and bikers.

Truckee town officials are exploring ways to reduce lighting in order to better see stars shining brightly. They're considering night-sky lighting standards as part of an ongoing update of the town's development code. "I think the bumper sticker, 'The stars shine brighter in Truckee' is funny. It should say, 'The stars used to shine brighter,' " said Eric Larusson, a night-sky standards advocate and former planning commissioner. "It's an aesthetic thing -- quality of life."

It's the green economy, stupid. It was hard not to think of this twist on his long-ago campaign slogan as former President Clinton toured the Los Angeles area on Monday, making the case that the quickest way out of the country's latest economic morass lies in the wonky topic of energy efficiency.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who served as national co-chairman of Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, is scheduled to appear today at City Hall with former President Clinton to announce a five-year project with the Clinton Climate Initiative to make the city's streetlights more energy-efficient. The mayor's office said the plan to swap out all 140,000 of L.A.'s residential streetlights with more energy-efficient LED lights would be the largest program of its kind undertaken by a city.

The Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro finally got its lights Sunday -- and with them, a new dose of respect. At least that is the hope of the locals in the broad-shouldered port neighborhood who have been fighting for the last 17 years to light the third-longest suspension bridge in California. The 160 baby-blue lights, strung along the length of the 2.

Along Vermont Avenue west of downtown, the streetscape is marked by that familiar Los Angeles mix of mini-malls, low-rise office buildings and aging Art Deco storefronts. But head north of 3rd Street and the chaotic commerce of Vermont suddenly takes on an unexpected order. A striking difference is new streetlights that look old-fashioned.