spider
Senior Member
I agree with much of what you say, my opinons are based on many years in the engineering department of a well known Telephone company here in Toronto trying to co-ordinate projects with a utility that just didn't care about esthetics, cost or disruptions to the streetscape.Given the ongoing vandalism of North Toronto by Toronto Hydro, where entire streets have seen their utility pole numbers double (and in places trebled) with no discernible end in sight, I would not be opposed to some change in how this company is run. They are an agency that seems completely unaccountable, and the cumulative experience of their stonewalling and incompetence during the Fleet, St. Clair, Bloor, and Roncesvalles rebuilds (and their refusal to contemplate large-scale utility burial as a result) renders them a prime target for whomever is elected mayor. I'm not saying privatize it, but its reliance on 19th century frontier town infrastructure and aesthetic backwardness is an embarrassment and has to stop if this city is ever to attain an attractive public realm. And don't even get me started on the rusted out poles that litter the city.
To be fair, the usual method of replacing pole lines is to place the new poles beside the old ones, transfer the wires and transformers to the new poles and then remove the old poles a whole street at a time. This system probably explains the temporary doubling of poles on your street, your problem is the time taken to complete the project which is often months rather than days. The front street hydro poles etc. were replaced on my street this past year, what a travesty of waste, hordes of trucks and employees (note I didn't describe all the participants as workers) often on weekends on overtime.