El Paso's purple streetlights ongoing problem due to nationwide LED defects

If you drive around El Paso and the county in the evenings, you might have noticed purple streetlights. Last year, KFOX14 reported that these lights were defective and needed replacement. However, despite efforts, many of these purple-hued streetlights still remain in different parts of town, including Eastlake Boulevard, Alameda Avenue, Mesa Street, and Delta Drive.

Andres Rico, the City of El Paso Transportation Manager, explained that this issue is not unique to El Paso—it’s a nationwide problem. The cause of the color change in these traffic streetlights lies in a coating failure on the LED bulbs. The natural light emitted by the LED is a purple and blue hue, but the phosphorus covering applied to the light bulb eventually burns off, resulting in the distinctive blue hue we see.

The company that supplied these lights has been able to identify the states and cities where the defective batches were sold, allowing them to be proactive in addressing the outages. Our sister stations in Illinois, North Carolina, and Maine have also reported similar purple streetlights due to the same lighting defect.