Some uncommon sense ideas about the delivery of our utilities

Or, How we can protect most of our streets from being constantly torn up while making way for the 21st century.

Why don’t we run our utilities under our sidewalks instead of in and under our streets?

We could build box-like concrete sewer and utility conduits (and occasional equipment vaults under our lawns) with lift off lids sections that are the sidewalk segments.

The upper portion, directly under the sidewalk could contain the electric power, communication cables, and fiber-optics.

The next level would be for water and natural gas.

The last two levels/sections are for sanitary sewage and storm runoff.

Street drains (called curb boxes) would route the road runoff to the storm conduit, and would be the only utility encroachment into the right of way, except for the requisite traffic control cabling conduits at intersections.

Similarly built reinforced raceways would be installed where the sidewalk utility conduits would have to cross the road. By careful planning, we could minimize these, also minimizing street encroachments.

It wouldn’t be cheap to implement, but the added reliability of buried utilities, during storms (ice, snow, and wind), and the savings from not tearing the streets up (and the associated traffic problems) would be definite plusses.

Just think of the possibility, streets with ZERO manholes and whole neighborhoods without telephone or power poles…

I LIKE it!