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In an effort to conserve energy, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu introduced legislation yesterday that "would prohibit downtown commercial buildings from leaving the lights on after hours," according to reports. If passed, Chiu's idea would "require commercial building owners to phase in the darkened skyline over one year," which would make San Francisco the only city in North America to shut off their office building lights at night to converse energy. If your recall, Aaron Peskin introduced similar legislation last year, which failed after the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco gave it a thumbs down.
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Why would building owners and managers not want to do this? Is their electricity free? Is it really that hard to have the janitors turn off the light when they are done?
They don't want to be hassled by SF bureaucrats for yet another thing. Before you know it there will be a seven member Sustainable Buildings Commission with subpoena power, one member from each of seven selected identity groups, and full time staff.
So there are going to be debates about this. Naturally, I vote for a dark skyline at night and would whole heartedly support it.
But when I moved to San Francisco nearly 1 year ago and drove over the bay bridge at 2AM, the lights of the skyline were welcoming and it was a thing of beauty. Travelers entering San Francisco from SFO, Golden Gate or The Bay Bridge are welcomed by the very unique downtown SF and it's beautiful skyline. Do we want to lose some aesthetic and save millions a year in power costs?
I still say yes but we have to consider the aesthetics as well.
What do you think about the "aesthetics" of San Francisco being under 5 feet of water?
Global warming is a real problem. Aesthetics are a fake problem.
Sea walls, baby. It's a shovel ready job creation program waiting to happen!
LIke I said I totally support turning the lights off. I was simply posting two sides of it beause I know that's going to be brought up. If I was on the board, I'd vote for every green law that we can get away with.
Smaller toilet bowls
required LED lights in every house
Dimmer street lights
more energy efficient busses
hell. let's make its' a lights out from 2:30AM to 5am where everyone in the city must have their lghts off. I'll vote for that too but there's always going to be someone who wants things to be pretty...
I agree with Adam's proposal. Don't hit the lights as soon as the sun goes down, but maybe from midnight til 5:30 a.m. or something? There's no need to have the lights blazing all night long. Midnight gives plenty of time for people to look at the lit up skyline, which I admire also.
What if I'm working past 12? I can understand turning off lights because nobody is there, but I do my best work at night. I would welcome turning the lights off though if nobody is there, because then law firms that leave the lights on just to show how hard they work would actually have to have people working in order for it to be true--not just a gimmick.
adamjackson, i was thinking the same thing, it sure does look nice from the bridge, but it's unsustainable. in reality i think this measure will die like last year though..
and if we really want some aesthetics, we need to take a look at some of asia's skylines. -they- know how to show off!
It's not hard to install automatic sensors that turn the lights off after a certain amount of time. My office building is equipped with them on every floor.
This seems like the most workable solution to the problem. We're trying to get these in our offices now. SF could inspect every couple of years to make sure motion sensors are working, and then if you see lights on you know somebody's there. There would be no need to investigate why lights were on at any given time and write tickets or whatever.
Drinking on my roof is going to be so much less entertaining without the gleaming skyline in the background. I'm all for aesthetics—even if it means taking a gondola to work every day.
I'm just waiting for some joker to stand up at a supes meeting in support of this measure because it will help prevent terrorists from flying planes into them.
How exactly does one converse energy? Conserving energy, perhaps?
Run on a generating treadmill wearing All-Stars.
Bravo, sir (or ma'am).
ha! well done, aj. well done.
It seems like there should be fruit that was more low-hanging and less contentious when it comes to this kind of energy conservation.
I agree that it would be kind of sad to have a (relatively) dark skyline at night. Maybe some expensive consultant could determine the minimum number of lights that need to be left on to keep the night skyline there without having to keep everything quite as lit up as it is now?
But I'm afraid of the dark!
So does this mean no more lighting up the City Hall dome in various colors all night to pander to various commercial interests?