Why the lights over a Grand River Transit hub in Kitchener are purple — and will be replaced

For several months, street lights over the Grand River Transit hub at the corner of Wilson Avenue and Fairway Road in Kitchener have been emitting a purplish-blue hue.

The unusual colour isn't part of the design — rather, a defect. 

Bill Barr, Grand River Transit's acting assistant director of transit services, said the lights are just a few out of thousands of city street lights around the country that have turned purple because of a defect.

"We are not going to leave them purple," he said. "They are under warranty, so we've started that process."

He said Grand River Transit has not received any complaints about the colour of the lights.

"It really hasn't been on our radar," he said. "If there's a problem with the lights, we want to get them changed out. There's a reason that they've changed colour and they should be the colour that we bought and paid for and intend to have."

Barr said all the lights are still covered by a five-year warranty, so changing them will be at no cost to taxpayers.

Purple lights across the country

The purple street lights have been seen across Canada and the United States.

In Vancouver, more than 100 purple lights have been reported since 2021. Like in Waterloo region, these fixtures were also covered by a manufacturer warranty.

In Manitoba, close to 1,000 defective street lights were replaced by October last year, with hundreds more likely needing replacement. Manitoba Hydro explained in November that the defect is due to something called delamination.

"LED street lights use LED packages that produce either a blue or purple light — in this case, purple — and a yellowish phosphor coating on them converts that colour to white. When the phosphor coating comes off, or delaminates, it lets the blue light through," the hydro company said in a media release.

"These defective lights emit the same amount of light, just in a different colour. There are no safety concerns with this spectrum of light."

The purple glow has also been seen in places like Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska and Kansas.