Street lamps are giving off an eerie indigo glow in certain areas of Vancouver. Could it be related to the green-light campaign of the mid-2010s (in which False Creek residents put on green lights in their condos to get the attention of the City, in hopes of creating a long-promised urban park)?

Nope, it’s not nearly as pre-meditated as all that.

The Great Purpling can be traced back to 2018, when Vancouver City Council implemented a city-wide roll-out of its Outdoor Lighting Strategy, replacing old bulbs in streetlights with LED fixtures.

“These upgrades include LED fixtures, 24-hour power, and a smart lighting control system,” read a 2021 memo from city manager Paul Mochrie to the mayor and councillors. “These changes will enable real-time monitoring of streetlight outages for over 80 per cent of the streetlight system by 2025, with plans to expand these upgrades to the entire system in a subsequent project phase.”

Well—it’s literally years into the plan, and a manufacturer’s defect has caused many of the LED bulbs’ coatings to delaminate, casting a bluish-purple light onto our streets.

“At the time of upgrading some intersection lighting in 2018, we received a defective batch that created this issue,” the City told the Straight in an email. “Since then, the manufacturer has taken the necessary improvement steps to avoid this issue reoccurring.” According to the City, “these failures are mainly occurring at intersections.”

If you’re interested in basking in this quirky phenomenon, you can find purple lights here:

• Nelson and Cambie
• Burrard and Robson
• Fraser and Broadway
• Homer and Davie
• Gaglardi and Como Lake
• Main and Grandview

Vancouver isn’t the only city bathed in an indigo glow. Spots all over the world, including much of the American West Coast, are having the same problem.

The City told the Straight they work to replace faulty bulbs as soon as they get calls about them to their 311 line. Given that the lights continue to turn faulty, seemingly at random, it sort of feels like the City is playing a large, never-ending game of Whac-A-Mole. Fun!

And despite the defective nature of the lights, there are more than a handful of Vancouverites who say they “dig the purple” glow across town.

“I was driving home late the other night and Spotify shuffle had put on a song from the Cyberpunk video game soundtrack,” wrote one local Redditor. “Halfway through it, I hit a long stretch of purple lights like this on the open highway and it was a pretty awesome vibe.”

Another wrote simply that “Prince would approve.”

Until they’re all replaced, we’ll be enjoying—with apologies to one-time Vancouverite Jimi Hendrix—the city’s distinct purple haze.