"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"John R. Carroll" wrote:

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"John R. Carroll" wrote:

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"John R. Carroll" wrote:

Upgrading the system turns into a fight over NIMBY or
front yard for that matter. Generally means taller poles and
another
substation that no
one wants in their designer neighborhood. Up the road, the locals
fought
an expansion so
long that federals rules on reliablity changed so now the system
they
didn't want has
become even bigger.

Do what San Diego did - put it all underground.

That is very expensive though.

Yeah but so is fixing above ground systems all the time.

The old rule of thumb is that underground costs five times as much as
on
poles.

For installation, and these systems aren't funded the way generation is.



Columbia, MD has all underground utilities. Rouse (sp?), the
developer,
did it that way from the beginning, which cut the initial cost a lot,
and pretty well eliminated maintenance costs (compared to
above-ground).

Above ground makes sense in limited cases but underground systems make
sense
fo everyone except developers interested in keeping their up front costs
as
low as possible.

I'm confused: Rouse *is* a developer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Rouse.

Specifically, the developer of Columbia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia,_Maryland.


But not typical. There will always be companies around that understand the
difference between price and value.
Some of them even have what it takes to put value first.

JC