How do you know the lamps are Lifeguards?

How do you know Why do you think the lamps are Lifeguards ? If the towers are in nightly use the old lamps would be long gone

Zarlog u need not to ASSume there lifeguards
They have been relamped relamp many times
Over. Well lastl relamp was dine about 6 to 8
Years ago,  the quailty of mercs these days
What killed it . Although still more reliable
Than LEDs. I hope they kept orginal fixtures
The people who push led also it have to do
With Austin Energy city owned utitly provide
Power for thst area that makes dumb decision
With city.  I was there seen them mercs
But man i should off took a photo back then.
It hard for me to travel at night do to my RP.
led dont help me to see the streets and sidewalks.
I felt my safety walking at night is loss due to this on those crap led street lights.. It strip me from going out
At night.

Zarlog u need not to ASSume there lifeguards
They have been relamped relamp many times
Over. Well lastl relamp was dine about 6 to 8
Years ago,  the quailty of mercs these days
What killed it . Although still more reliable
Than LEDs. I hope they kept orginal fixtures
The people who push led also it have to do
With Austin Energy city owned utitly provide
Power for thst area that makes dumb decision
With city.  I was there seen them mercs
But man i should off took a photo back then.
It hard for me to travel at night do to my RP.
led dont help me to see the streets and sidewalks.
I felt my safety walking at night is loss due to this on those crap led street lights.. It strip me from going out
At night.

Someone said that they are Lifeguards in a Youtube comment. It sure is sad that they are ruining these decades-old installations just because of this stupid new fad that will hopefully go away in a few years.

LED is beyond "fad" status at this point. HID and fluorescent for general lighting use will slowly dwindle away and will never come back in any significant numbers. Mark my words. I'll miss seeing it everywhere, but the shift to LED will make our collections all the more special and important. I'd say another 10-15 years and it'll be hard to find working, maintained fluorescent or HID fixtures outside of personal collections and some residential applications where the lights don't need to be serviced frequently.

Incandescent, on the other hand, will stick around for a while longer, I predict. There is simply no true replacement for an incandescent lamp. My favorite lighting technology is probably fluorescent, but I really need to have some incandescent lighting in order to feel comfortable. Here at school, the only incandescent lighting I get is from the lamps in my own apartment, and I really do value it a lot more when there's so little of it.

LED is beyond "fad" status at this point. HID and fluorescent for general lighting use will slowly dwindle away and will never come back in any significant numbers. Mark my words. I'll miss seeing it everywhere, but the shift to LED will make our collections all the more special and important. I'd say another 10-15 years and it'll be hard to find working, maintained fluorescent or HID fixtures outside of personal collections and some residential applications where the lights don't need to be serviced frequently.

Incandescent, on the other hand, will stick around for a while longer, I predict. There is simply no true replacement for an incandescent lamp. My favorite lighting technology is probably fluorescent, but I really need to have some incandescent lighting in order to feel comfortable. Here at school, the only incandescent lighting I get is from the lamps in my own apartment, and I really do value it a lot more when there's so little of it.

Well, look at what happened with HPS in the 70's and 80's. It started being installed EVERYWHERE, even places that it did not belong. (I hear that it was even used in CLASSROOMS!) However, soon the big installations started failing, and HPS died down to just streetlighting and floodlights. The same thing will probably happen with LED in 5-10 years. I am starting to loose interest in this hobby because of nothing but LED being everywhere now. I have a tiny collection and can't get any more stuff.

HPS may have peaked at one point and then fallen somewhat, but it still practically "orange-washed" the entire street lighting industry for decades (not something I'm too happy about). LED is far more versatile than HPS, so I expect it will stick around in more applications even if it proves impractical in a few of them. If there's one place I think LED could ultimately fail, it's in ultra-high-power applications like high mast or stadium lighting. Also, I think we'll still have incandescent lamps in ovens for some time.

It can be put into many places, but is far from being the best - or being acceptable at all - for many of them. So it is a fad, even if enforced by the industry for a long time

HPS might have made a fad in the 70s, but by now you see it pretty much in the places where it is most appropriate and not everywhere (allthough some installations better reconsider the installed wattage....). Ideally this is the future i want for LED as well

I want LED lighting to have lots of cooling, maybe install a big radiator connected to several LED streetlights?

That would require major changes to infrastructure and it would increase complexity (and reduce reliability).

Maybe leave LED to where appropriate and not street lighting ?

There's also the possibility of the utility having small post top lights (essentially the solar powered ones you stick into the ground) light up the street, but hard-wired and much brighter.
Or have streetlights with a motion sensor to only have the light on when needed.

The post-top thing wouldn't really do much. The motion sensor thing, on the other hand...I can definitely see that taking off.

Both things are allready out there. Except nothing prevents the use of a better light source in the same systems..

Motion sensors can only really be used with light sources than can handle frequent switching:
CCFL: Too impractical for street lighting.
Halogen/Incandescent: Too inefficient.
LED: The perfect lamp for motion detection lighting?