On Friday volunteers and City of San Diego work crews planted trees in Colina del Sol Park and along nearby streets for Arbor Day.
This week also marked another milestone in the beautification of San Diego’s right of ways. The community of Bay Park saw the city complete its undergrounding of power lines. The month before, the Rolando neighborhood was finished.
Power lines and poles that remain a common site are a historic architecture that nobody wants to preserve. City officials say burying those lines isn’t just making a neighborhood look better.
It’s protecting people from fire and power outages.
“At the core of this program is safety and reliability. So we prioritize communities of concern and of high fire risk. So it reduces the impacts to the energy grid and to people’s homes that live there,” said Chelsea Klaseus, who oversees right of way management for the San Diego Transportation Department.
The money for undergrounding comes from a surcharge on SDG&E power bills in San Diego. Klaseus says undergrounding also funds other community improvements like street repaving.
The work is done by city crews and SDG&E, and it starts with a narrow trench that’s cut in the pavement of a street, where the power lines are buried. This gets the attention of the neighborhood and the Rolando residents I spoke with were pleased with the attention they got.
They especially like the prospect of no more electricity outages from downed power lines.
“We’re really happy with it. We’re really glad it was done. And it’s good that we aren’t exposed to storms and things like that so the electricity is secure,” said Rolando resident John, who didn’t give his last name.
“It’s nice. It provides a better view,” said Rolando resident Eric Schultz. “And it makes it so the elements don’t affect the power outages and wind and all that other stuff. And less bird droppings as well!”
A color-coded map on the City of San Diego website shows parts of the city that have been ungrounded and those that are yet to come. Some newer neighborhoods had their utilities undergrounded from the time they were built.
But if your neighborhood on the map is shown in gray, don’t hold your breath waiting for your power lines to be buried. Klaseus says the undergrounding process, begun in 1970, is a long way to go before the whole city is done.
“We have about 1,200 miles, total, to underground and we’re done 400 so far. So we’re not halfway yet and we’ll be doing this for many years to come,” she said.
