Thread: Why aren't all utilities buried?

Mostly because it's really, really impractical to move said utilities when the need arises.

In urban areas pretty much all your utilities will be underground but there is relatively little chance that massive changes will be made to the structures built on that ground. In rural and suburban areas change is very common and it's a whole hell of a lot easier to move elevated wires when, for example, you want to expand an intersection or upgrade for the purpose of hooking up a new sub-division.

Elevated lines are quicker and cheaper. Crews seldom blow the whole neighborhood up by breaking into a gas-line when mending fallen wires.
There are plenty of places in the country where the lines would be underground and under a few feet of snow and ice for months.

Otherwise it does seem pretty silly not to bury them doesn't it?

Its really costly in the short term, and very few people ever want to invest for the future.

Also, although power cables don't see a whole lot of technological improvements (unless they discover some room-temperature superconductors that are really cheap), things like fiber optics, etc, become more expensive to install than stringing them from pre-existing poles. They could run empty conduit, but then again that would be spending money as an investment for the future which is an anethema to the majority of people.

Utility poles lining the roads are exellent at stopping vehicles that stray a few feet off the road.

Originally Posted by hairballxavier

Utility poles lining the roads are exellent at stopping vehicles that stray a few feet off the road.

HA! Now that they have gone to all the breakaway crap it's nowhere near as much fun as it used to be.

How else can you play a game of street football withput the poles?

How will you know you scored a TD?

Originally Posted by CSA

How else can you play a game of street football withput the poles?

How will you know you scored a TD?

We used to go driveway to driveway.....and we'd stand 2 guys in the end zone for field goals.

Originally Posted by lutherf

We used to go driveway to driveway.....and we'd stand 2 guys in the end zone for field goals.

We used an intersection as one boundary and a manhole

cover as the other !

Very little traffic in "36" produced "few" casualties.

It is enormously expensive, vulnerable to being accidentally dug into, and doesn't hold up well over a long period of time. Our buried telephone cable locally was installed in the 70's and already goes nuts every time it rains, plus gets cut every time the road crews dig out the ditches. There are no plans to replace it due to the cost.

Originally Posted by John Drake

This recent hurricane, and all others, would have been MUCH less damaging if all utilities were buried.

Where I live some people have been without power for five days. All their refrigerated or frozen food is lost and some people have died for lack of lifesaving oxygen machinery. (Many of them were warned and were ready for an interruption of up to 48hours, which is all that is recommended)

Many new utilities already are routinely buried, so it's not inherently an impractical idea. I don't see how it could possibly cost more than 100 billion, and even if it was five times that it's still less than we spend on a largely useless, (though brave and competent) military in one year.

It would put people to work and probably pay for itself in less than a decade.

Why isn't it even suggested, by liberals or conservatives?

Because sure as I'm sitting here typing this some yo yo would be digging a hole where he's not supose to and.....well you know the rest.

More expensive to put in, dramatically more expensive to repair.

Couple pretty serious negatives there. In new residential areas I've noticed much more of the utilities are underground, and yes, some idiot drives a truck over a line when the ground's wet and cracks something and the whole neighborhood starts screaming.

It can't be that expensive since many european nations do it.
Actually not having underground utilities is more of an oddity in Germany even in rural areas... in cities I think I never saw electricity/telecommunication infrastructure above ground.

All this talk about low quality & accidentally being dug up is just an excuse for poor quality & planning standards.

I bet it happens more often that overground lines are cut by falling trees than underground lines accidently being dug up.

Originally Posted by John Drake

Why isn't it even suggested, by liberals or conservatives?

We usually discuss federal policies and bigger issues here... this falls absolutly into the responsibilities of municiples / cities or states at best.

It's something best done during a regular modernizaion cycle.