Shining a Light on the Politics of Illumination
This isn’t an allegoric post. It really is about light…and the local decisions that go into how our communities are illuminated.
From digital signs to sports fields to transit walkways, municipal leaders face decisions about how light should align with community needs. Light can expand recreation opportunities, generate revenue, and get residents home safe. But it can also cause light pollution that impacts residents’ well-being and wildlife. As you head into the holiday break and look toward the light at the end of the tunnel, remember: even light can yield to policy, procedures, and politics.
Digital signage
Both commercial and municipal signage are increasingly going digital with lights providing information, advertising, and driving updates.
Consider JOLT Charge, an EV charging company that combines digital advertising with vehicle charging stations that provide 50 kilometres of free charging and generate revenue for municipalities when placed on public property. JOLT must navigate a myriad of local planning requirements and sign by-laws to install its combined charging and signage infrastructure. One key challenge is municipal lighting restrictions that typically set a maximum brightness (luminance). In sensitive land-use areas, brightness can be reduced; technological advances also allow brightness to be adjusted to meet site-specific requirements.
Municipalities are working across divisions to align zoning and sign policies to enable innovative products like JOLT to deliver EV charging infrastructure.
Sports fields and focused illumination with less light pollution
Municipal leaders must consider how lighting for recreational amenities such as sports fields and community facilities is designed to balance access, safety, and environmental impacts. As Sarah Ane, Director of Policy and Partnerships at Parks and Recreation Ontario, notes, “Lighting parks and sports fields is a delicate balance. It can open doors to participation for working families, youth, and community leagues, while also raising valid concerns around light pollution, environmental impacts, and neighbourhood character. Thoughtful design, strong standards, and meaningful community engagement are essential to ensuring lighting solutions serve both people and place.”
This balance has prompted some municipalities to move away from older, inefficient fixtures toward more modern LED systems, though adoption remains limited. In April 2025, a university track and soccer field in Nova Scotia became the first outdoor sports lighting project in Canada to hold DarkSky certification. DarkSky promotes outdoor lighting practices designed to reduce glare, light trespass, and skyglow while supporting public safety and usability. Applying emerging best practices and establishing formal standards underscores the opportunity municipalities have to leverage technological advances to better manage competing neighbourhood interests—particularly when developing policy frameworks and procuring new products.
In Toronto, lighting upgrades are intended not only to reduce operating costs, but also to improve safety, reduce light pollution, protect wildlife, and create more comfortable, natural-feeling public spaces. Through initiatives such as the City’s 2024–2025 recreation facility refresh, the City is upgrading lighting to incorporate warmer tones, focused down-shielding, and smart controls such as timers and motion sensors. Projects involving community centres, park revitalizations, and pathways demonstrate how these approaches can provide safer, more even illumination while significantly reducing glare, energy use, and light trespass into nearby residential areas.
While technology and careful planning can reduce conflicts around lighting public spaces, there is still debate about how light should be used to support resident safety.
Public outdoor spaces and brighter illumination
Municipal leaders must consider lighting through the lens of public safety in outdoor spaces such as walkways and parks. For many residents, well-lit pathways create a greater sense of safety and increase the usability of public spaces, particularly during evening hours. While illuminating dark parks and walkways may appear to be a straightforward solution, lighting can become a band-aid for poorly designed public spaces . Some argue that unsheltered or poorly designed lighting can create glare that reduces visibility and makes it more difficult to identify potential threats, ultimately undermining safety rather than enhancing it. Critics also point to concerns about light pollution and its documented effects on human health, including disruption of circadian rhythms linked to sleep disorders such as insomnia and delayed sleep-phase syndrome. These are the kinds of considerations municipal leaders must navigate when making planning and policy decisions related to outdoor lighting.
Light in a community is not simply determined by the spin of the earth and the decisions of an opaque governmental body. The decisions that illuminate our communities are driven by community needs, commerce, policy, and people. As we pause to rest before the next round of political debate and decision-making, it may be worth thinking twice about exactly how much light to shine on the next issue at hand.