Yeah, but you have to admit it looks pretty cool. I kind of like stuff that looks like it was nailed together by a boy scout troupe, though.

A delivery truck going through the alley behind my house took out a cluster a lot like that one. It was a bloody mess. I felt awful for the Verizon guy who’s day was ruined.

At the same time I had to chuckle since I don’t have a land line…

Most power lines in our neighborhood are underground. But none of the cable or phone lines are.

With enough money, anything can be done. Tear up every street/alley? At least these ugly things are in the alleys. Note how we don’t have power poles in our front yards.

What neighborhood do you all live in? We have poles in our front yards up here north of Grant Circle as do most people (even in the nicer West of the park neighborhoods). There are front yard poles in the front of a whole lot of DC. Almost beyond belief. (I’m from Chicago, and we NEVER had poles in front of people’s houses. Almost everything was buried as per city law. And what wasn’t always — and only — ran in the alleys. But then no place spends as much effort making sure that their tree lined street canopy stays in place.

In California, there was much debate about how to underground the lines. Each municipality had a different deal with the various companies. It was an expensive and slow process, but was moving along. I know that Arlington County around here has been very unhappy with Dominion Electric’s speed at underground wires.

So how can DC do it? Make it a priority and push it through. I could giving a flying about brick sidewalks and the like (I personally can’t stand them), but all the utility poles in front of houses around my neighborhood and other parts of town, drive me insane.