Bury the Power Lines!

[mr. chips]

Wouldn't it be great if Columbia could be one of the three cities. For aesthetic and practical reasons. Notice that Greenville is already considering this:

http://www.thestate.com/statewire/story/669827.html

[CorgiMatt]

Duke doesn't serve Columbia, so Columbia won't be one of the three.

[Spartan]

There's no reason SCE&G couldn't do the same thing. Or, if Duke's study proves to be feasible, that they couldn't use that study for their purposes too.

[BrasilnSC]

Hopefully SCE&G will follow suit....it's the least they could do for the city of Columbia (since they decided to leave).

It still bugs me that power lines aren't being buried where new construction and sidewalks are been installed, aka Adesso and Horizon I.

[dobboard]

I hate the power lines, they are visual pollution at its worst.

t still bugs me that power lines aren't being buried where new construction and sidewalks are been installed, aka Adesso and Horizon I.

[Doug L]

All that spaghetti strung between poles is truly disgusting! Lady Street is almost perfect until you see the high power lines that loom high above, then take a turn down Park Street so that they are at eye level to many of the rooms in our 5 star Hilton Hotel.

Yuck!

[gman430]

All that spaghetti strung between poles is truly disgusting! Lady Street is almost perfect until you see the high power lines that loom high above, then take a turn down Park Street so that they are at eye level to many of the rooms in our 5 star Hilton Hotel.

Yuck!

[krazeeboi]

Don't take "5 stars" literally in this case, LOL.

[gman430]

I hate the power lines, they are visual pollution at its worst.

It irks me as well. The mess of lines in front of the new Horizon building looks awful in my opinion. I simply can not fathom how you spend over $100 million on that development and Adesso, and do not bury the lines.

[dobboard]

How expensive would it have been? Multi-millon dollar condo development and they can not come up with room in the budget to bury the lines?

Maybe I am just overly anal when it comes to power lines, but I would take into consideration how poorly they look before purchasing a high-end condo in that development.

[mr. chips]

I wonder whether some money for doing this could come from the infrastructure dollars from the federal government. It could put people to work!

[Captain Worley]

How expensive would it have been? Multi-millon dollar condo development and they can not come up with room in the budget to bury the lines?

Maybe I am just overly anal when it comes to power lines, but I would take into consideration how poorly they look before purchasing a high-end condo in that development.

[Spartan]

Burying power lines can cost tens of thousands of dollars per pole in an urban environment. It depends on what kind of load the powerlines carry, what sort of utilities have wires up there, and what sort of utilities are underground that they have to work around. It's extremely cost prohibitive for a developer to bury the lines.

[Doug L]

Although the cost of burying power lines is expensive, it is my understanding that the cost of maintenance is so low that it is cost effective for the power company to bury them. Another benefit of the power lines being underground is that they are so much less vulnerable to storms and lightening, therefore being much more dependable. The only exception to that is earthquake.

[Captain Worley]

Nah, maintenance doesn't come anywhere near to offsetting the costs. About the only advantage to burial is less power outage in storms, and that's really not that much of a concern, really.

[dobboard]

Burying power lines can cost tens of thousands of dollars per pole in an urban environment. It depends on what kind of load the powerlines carry, what sort of utilities have wires up there, and what sort of utilities are underground that they have to work around. It's extremely cost prohibitive for a developer to bury the lines.

[Captain Worley]

Oh, it can be done, but there has to be a will to do it and the funds, one or both of which seems to be lacking.

Don't be hatin' on the lines!

[Ronak]

Most estimates put burying power lines at around $500-750 per foot.

Although, USC actually already has a system of tunnels under the campus. They're used to carry steam and cable tv lines throughout the University. I had a friend who actually used to work for DEIS (they run cable for USC), who has spent more than one summer pulling coax lines through these tunnels. I'm curious as to whether or not these could be used for power lines as well. Maybe they are and I just don't know about it.

[Spartan]

I don't know what Holder's financing situation was. They would have had to bury the entire block, so at least $100,000 (probably way more) to relocate lines is not "cheap" by anyone's standards. I suspect that they really stretched the budget to build a quality urban product that they thought would sell in Columbia.

I agree that the power lines are ugly, but thats why we should 1) bury them to start with, or 2) have service alleys behind blocks to locate utilities.

[mr. chips]

Burying power lines can cost tens of thousands of dollars per pole in an urban environment.

[breed]

Virtually all the cities in Europe have buried their power lines. Do you think that they are wealthier than we are? No, it is a matter of choice. People there demand an aesthetically beautiful environment to live in. They demand parks, and public transportation. And people-friendly streets. And buried power lines. Its up to us to demand this of our government and businesses.

[mr. chips]

One crucial difference is that in Europe density patterns are much higher, meaning the amount of line burying required per capita is much smaller. That doesn't make the issue any less important, but comparing the two isn't a perfect apples-to-apples comparison.

[Spartan]

The difference is that in Europe, there is more political will to have the government pay for things like that. Usually what happens, at least in this part of the South, is that you have a major streetscape project that improves everything, including burying the lines.

Does anyone know if Columbia or Richland County requires new subdivisions to bury their power lines?

[digital_sandlapper]

along with the billboards . . . that dot the landscape of South Carolina.

[GvilleSC]

People there demand an aesthetically beautiful environment to live in. They demand parks, and public transportation. And people-friendly streets. And buried power lines.