Episode 187: Dark Sky Special Part Six: Finding Balance

Ron Gibbons is the director for the Center for Infrastructure-based Safety Systems and an associate professor at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and here is to discuss his work and experience in the dark.As a Canadian, he grew up with outsized access to dark spaces, sharing stories about being so far from any light source he hit a tree in front of his face. Now, as a researcher he is very happy to be spread across any number of field studies, ranging from his two miles of test road on campus to comparing roadside-grown soybeans to other soybeans. What he has learned, when it comes to light at night, we all need to put health first, health is more than absence of illness it is about promoting wellbeing for all affected. When we put up a light we all need to balance the needs of everyone and everything under that light.The episode also discusses the idea of lighting crosswalks the same we light a stage, the lack of maximum limits in lighting regulations, building awareness before and after policy changes go into effect, the controversial position of banning all those RGB lighting rigs on bridges, and building enough design knowledge in the lighting industry to be helpful in making nights darker.