Toronto Hydro: PowerUp Infrastructure Improvement Program

[allabootmatt]

Toronto Hydro has set up a site that breaks down their planned rebuild of electrical infrastructure more or less by neighbourhood at www.poweruptoronto.ca

This project, to my great dismay, includes installing a hell of a lot of ghastly new wooden poles, in some cases even replacing unobtrusive concrete ones, for example along Eglinton. This to me is an insult to our city and to any hope of beautifying it in a comprehensive way. Hydro has a feedback function on the site; would be good to get a critical mass of us complaining about their apparent comfort with using the ugliest methods possible for all new construction.

Mods, feel free to move this to Toronto Issues if you think merited. Thanks.

 

[androiduk]

^ Thanks for the link. I emailed them asking why it takes so long to fix some of these hydro vaults like the ones on Bloor near Yonge.

 

[UrbanAffair]

Toronto hydro came and did some underground wiring near my condo, and really pissed people off by shutting down power for 24 hours. brutal. They also left their signature black ashphalt strip for 20 meters down a sidwalk...brutal x1000

 

[Filip]

I wrote them a pretty angry email about all this.. It's a city owned company - why isn't it working WITH the city FOR the city.. GUH!

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

Another peeve is their neglect of replacing street lights when they burn out. I only report lights in my general neighbourhood via their Street Lighting website, basically whatever I notice when my dog & I do our walks at night and there's rarely a week that I don't find yet another light burned out and in some cases they don't get repaired for months. Walking home from the Royal Cinema on College West last month about every second or third light was burned out along College Street, I couldn't believe it. Shameful.

 

[to-enthusiast]

Power down, Toronto?

As in put all that nasty stuff underground!

It would be great if we could mine this forum for talented web designers who are passionate about designing a website that is an answer to that shite powerUp website.

Any takers? I'd gladly write some copy. These things never cease to amaze me.

 

[DSC]

Another peeve is their neglect of replacing street lights when they burn out. I only report lights in my general neighbourhood via their Street Lighting website, basically whatever I notice when my dog & I do our walks at night and there's rarely a week that I don't find yet another light burned out and in some cases they don't get repaired for months. Walking home from the Royal Cinema on College West last month about every second or third light was burned out along College Street, I couldn't believe it. Shameful.

I too often report lights that are burned out - and I must say that the usually fix them within a week or so - BUT one has to wonder why THEY don't drive around and check themselves. Sometimes a whole block of lights is out (last week it was around Lakeshore and Lower Jarvis) and this is hardly difficult to spot!

 

[Tewder]

All this does is show how contemptuous of the city it serves Hydro has become. Wooden poles! Really? And they get away with this?

I'll send an email but Hyrdo wont care until this becomes political, and even then...

Edited to add: I just tried sending a message to Hydro through the 'Feedback' feature of their Power Up web site but it wouldn't allow me to, it keeps rejecting the verificaton code I enter even though I've tried several times.... grrrrrr! Typical!!

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

The intersection of Oriole Parkway and Chaplin Crescent now has, at my last count, twenty-two poles as a result of one of their ongoing projects, not counting the duplicate poles they've placed along Chaplin, Highbourne, Avenue Road, and other nearby streets as part of this project. Just unreal.

 

[Automation Gallery]

The intersection of Oriole Parkway and Chaplin Crescent now has, at my last count, twenty-two poles as a result of one of their ongoing projects, not counting the duplicate poles they've placed along Chaplin, Highbourne, Avenue Road, and other nearby streets as part of this project. Just unreal.

Unreal..they need their heads checked.

 

[maestro]

I too often report lights that are burned out - and I must say that the usually fix them within a week or so - BUT one has to wonder why THEY don't drive around and check themselves. Sometimes a whole block of lights is out (last week it was around Lakeshore and Lower Jarvis) and this is hardly difficult to spot!

They wouldn't have enough people to drive around and check for themselves even with triple the staff. The reality of the situation is that Toronto is a HUGE city. We are also paying the reprocussions of decisions made early last century when Toronto really was a hick town.I remember in 1995 ... the pit of a recession ... the estimated value to bury all the wires right up to the roughly 400,000 buildings was at 30 billion dollars.

With taht said, wooden poles?!?

 

[urbandreamer]

Yes, wooden poles are the way to go--with Canada's timber industry in the doldrums, anything that supports them is a good idea. It's probably cheaper to use wooden poles than concrete ones, if you look at timber vs. concrete prices. I think these poles are charming--they i.d. Toronto to me much like the wooden poles in back alleys i.d.'s Vancouver. Now, perhaps several streets--like WQW or K-Market--could paint their poles vibrant colours?

 

[dt_toronto_geek]

I too often report lights that are burned out - and I must say that the usually fix them within a week or so - BUT one has to wonder why THEY don't drive around and check themselves. Sometimes a whole block of lights is out (last week it was around Lakeshore and Lower Jarvis) and this is hardly difficult to spot!

I've got five areas where I've reported lights out twice, first in mid-May and then in late June and they're still not repaired.
Bloor Street between Balumuto St. and Avenue Road is completely out for over a month now. I know they are working in that area for the Bloor Street Project but to keep hydro lights up and operational during a construction project doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

 

[mgl]

You can come see the wooden poles on Carlton just west of Parliament. The put them in all over the neighbourhood a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, they didn't take down the old metal poles even though they disconnected all the wires from them. So now we have twice as many poles as before with no obvious benefit.

I think the real reason they did this was to install those huge and unsightly canisters at the top of the wooden poles, the ones they hide equipment in. There probably wasn't room for them on the shorter metal poles and the wooden poles put that up higher out of eyesight.

Anyway, Carlton is an ugly forest of hydro poles, some used, some abandoned.

 

[Automation Gallery]

They wouldn't have enough people to drive around and check for themselves even with triple the staff. The reality of the situation is that Toronto is a HUGE city. We are also paying the reprocussions of decisions made early last century when Toronto really was a hick town.I remember in 1995 ... the pit of a recession ... the estimated value to bury all the wires right up to the roughly 400,000 buildings was at 30 billion dollars.

Yeah, at their pace and considering the financial situation it most likely wont happen in our lifetime..what really pisses me off is to see them dig up Roncy and make no effort to bury anything..thats insane. And by the way Europe also has some huge cities the size of Toronto and larger and they seem to have managed to bury the majority of their wires.