Do you really not see a difference between that and this? Google Maps Yes there’s telecom here too, but there’s precisely zero effort to making anything the least bit tidy, whether it’s the pole-mounted transformers, the multiple secondary distribution wires, the oversized taps and fuses, the sloppy installation of the u-channel for the riser, or the dangly 3-phase service drops.
Frankly I think situations like that and this one Google Maps are borderline criminal. It’s the type of civic failure I’d expect to see in Bangkok or Guadalajara, not the supposed richest country in the world. I just find it bizarre that even in relatively well-to-do areas in the US this is still considered acceptable.
I will grant that it’s a bit easier for the European grids because their secondary distribution transformers can serve a whole neighborhood with their 230/400 volt service compared to just a couple of buildings with the North American 120/240 volt service.
They’re all in the city limits, but so what? The point is this is hideous practically anywhere in the US, and frankly they shouldn’t even there in the city at all.
In 3rd grade (1976ish), we were learning about different forms of communication. We had a telephone man come out and demonstrate how they climb a pole. I remember spiked shoes and a harness-like, wide loopy thing he used (around his waist and the pole) to shimmy up the pole! Kids these days will never know…
Yes, they are affected. Those weather conditions cause traffic accidents, which can damage utility poles. And damage from traffic accidents is probably more common than direct weather damage.
Manhattan has the best of all possibilities: Underground (protected from weather & traffic) but in tunnels (easily accessible for maintenance & enhancement).
Unfortunately, there aren’t likely to be any more like that added in the USA, due to a corrupt provision hidden in a law passed in the 1990’s. Cities were starting to notice the confusion of overhead wires, and the torn-up streets of direct burial, and were moving toward city utility tunnels to hold all of these. But the provision in the federal law prohibited cities from charging companies rent for the use of such city facilities. Which killed the idea of more cities adding them, since now they couldn’t pay for them.
(It also inhibited competitors – instead of just running their cables through the city utility tunnels, they either had to spend more bury their own cables, or pay to have them on existing utility poles (often owned by a utility they would be competing with). So it is much more expensive for a new competitor to start up. That was fine with the existing utility companies, too.)
I believe that the tunnels under Manhattan are actually private, owned by the Edison Electric company.
Unfortunately that strap isn’t what you described. The strap is used when you get to your working position on the pole and then you use it be able to work with both hands. At least at AT&T and BellSouth we were forbidden to use the strap as a climbing aid as doing so wore out the expensive leather straps.
If you happen to cut out (fall) while using the strap it doesn’t help you from falling. Instead it keeps you close to the pole as you plummet making sure you are full of very painful splinters.
In the mid-1990s while working in cable Government Relations, I was involved in a project where SNET, seeking to expand their capabilities beyond what the twisted pair could deliver, strung up hundreds of miles of cable that had power running through it - meaning our techs would have to climb over this “powered” cable to access the our cables, which always had second position on the poles. Their proposed cable was about as big around as a baseball and had a hollow core through which the needed power was run
SNET tried to get a code amendment passed to allow their cable to be used but we were successful in lobbying against it, and SNET had to remove all the cable they had installed. A friend who was a SNET lineman paid for his wedding with all the OT.
I know it’s a zombie, but I haven’t seen any mention yet of the “high” and “low” sides of a utility pole. Given the option, you want to climb the “high” side. It is a lot more difficult to climb the “low” side.
Funny, I happened to notice a spike just the other day, about 10’ up. I assumed workers would use a ladder to get up to that bottom spike. Have to see if I can remember where I saw it. I assume in our neighborhood while walking the dog.
One time, my father and I were driving on the highway outside of Marfa, Texas. It is prairie/desert, very flat, and with very little vegetation. There is a section where the highway runs parallel to a line of power poles.
During World War Two, the Army Air Corps had a flight school near Marfa, where Dad had learned to fly. He told my that cadets would frequently fly above the highway. When they were in a mischievous mood, they would fly very low. You would look ahead, and line up the nose of the plane with the center-line of the highway. You would look to the side, and line up your wingtip with the tops of the power poles. Dad chuckled as he described how car drivers would panic, and swerve, and zig-zag, and sometimes swerve completely off the road.
Suddenly, he stopped laughing.
“You know something? These are the shortest G** D***** power poles I have ever seen in my life!”
In about 1968 or 69, a bunch of hippies, on the way to somewhere, camped near a creek, under a telephone pole a couple miles from our house. They stayed a day or so, then moved on.
But one of them, before leaving, climbed up the spikes on the pole, and left a large teddy bear clinging to the pole. That bear was there for years! Through wind and rain, summer and winter, sun and snow, that bear was a constant landmark on the way to town.
One day the bear was gone. Now the poles are all gone. The creek, however, remains.
I wonder if the hippies ever got where they were going? Do they remember the bear?
I wonder how many members know what a stoneboat is without using google? I’ve used one for similar reasons. The major spring crop in New England is rocks.