Illuminating Issues in Bus Stop Lighting: A Case Study of Los Angeles

Providing adequate nighttime lighting at bus stops is integral to providing safe, comfortable, and gender-equitable transit services. Despite the volume of research establishing the importance of bus stop lighting, little research has been done to understand the distribution of adequate lighting at bus stops. This research uses Los Angeles, U.S., as a case study and draws on the results from over 200 nighttime environmental assessments conducted at bus stops in three neighborhoods to describe the adequacy of lighting at stops and the determinants of lighting levels. The results show that only about half of the assessed stops were adequately lit and only about a quarter were well-lit. Lighting deficiencies were particularly concentrated in certain geographic areas, and stops were the most likely to be poorly lit in the lowest-income neighborhood included in the study. The presence of a bus shelter with integrated lighting is the most significant determinant of bus stop lighting levels, but the lighting levels at the nearest streetlight and proximity to well-lit buildings also significantly affect bus stop lighting. This research then compares these findings with analysis of data on streetlight locations to investigate the limitations of using existing public data to assess nighttime lighting when other data are not available. The results show that analyses of streetlight locations can paint an incomplete or even misleading picture of trends in the distribution of adequate lighting within cities or transit systems, illustrating the importance of collecting data on actual lighting outcomes at bus stops.