Malahat highway's purple lights to be replaced: Province

If you drive the Malahat highway at night, you may have noticed something a little odd lately.

Drivers have reported seeing a purple haze on the highway, and the B.C. Ministry of Transportation says that faulty streetlights are to blame.

The province says three streetlights have been identified as having a manufacturing defect which causes the purple colour, all of which are located near the intersection of Highway 1 and Aspen Road.

"This has occurred at isolated locations and is not anticipated to be an ongoing issue," said the ministry in a statement Monday.

The province says it has hired a contractor to replace the faulty lights, and that repairs are expected to take about a week to complete.

While the Ministry of Transportation says only three lights have been affected, other commuters say they've seen more of the purple lights along the Malahat.

The new lights were installed as part of a three-year-long project to upgrade every provincial highway light on Vancouver Island to L.E.D. lights, which the province says is more energy efficient.