The Necklace of Lights is a string of more than 4,000 lights encircling the 4.82 kilometers (3.4-mile) Lake Merritt waterfront in Oakland, California. The last major re-lamping of the 90-year-old landmark took place in 2006, when 11-watt incandescent bulbs were replaced with 3-watt cold cathode compact fluorescent bulbs. As the cold cathode bulbs aged, replacements became increasingly expensive and hard to find. The City of Oakland needed a solution that would deliver high-quality illumination, energy savings and longevity. Working with local MaxLite distributor San Leandro Electric Supply, the city recently replaced the 4,500 cold cathode bulbs with MaxLite 2.5-watt LED Marquee Lamps.

Oakland, Calif., is committed to energy efficiency and has been named one of America’s greenest cities. Its decision was natural to upgrade more than 30,000 street lights to GE’s Evolve™ LED Roadway Scalable Cobrahead fixtures—a move that will save this West Coast port city more than $1.4 million in annual energy and maintenance costs.

At the morning news conference yesterday, City Councilman Larry Reid said that the installation of energy-efficient LED street lights in the whole Oakland will save money in the long run and help reduce crimes. Oakland has already begun replacing 30,000 installed high-pressure sodium street lights with LED street lights, following up a successful pilot program that in last fall the new LED street lights were installed in some place of the city. City officials said that installing LED street lights will not only provide brighter and better lighting with less glare an...