The Ultility Poles and Wires of Portland, ME

[nomc]

 

[mainejeff]

A power pole sitting on little pieces of wood!.....love it!

 

[Corey]

Plane and Wires, gelatin silver print, 2023

Plane Contrail Between Power Lines York Street by Corey Templeton, on Flickr

 

[mainejeff]

Wow...that belongs on an art museum wall!

 

[Corey]

For giggles, saw this on Redfin. Between the actual wires and shadows of wires I almost fainted.

 

[nomc]

If you hadn't said it was from Redfin I would have guessed it was a lost Escher.

 

[nomc]

I feel bad for the pole on the right... it only gets one wire and is clearly in exile.

 

[mainejeff]

I'm calling that one....."Lines And Clouds".....it's a masterpiece!

 

[matt.gree]

There's a contractor installing MORE utility poles on Winter Street, because that's surely what we need. Thanks, CMP!

 

[PWMFlyer]

They are replacing the old ones, but it takes over 10 years to move the lines to the new pole and the old one will sit for another 10

 

[matt.gree]

They are replacing the old ones, but it takes over 10 years to move the lines to the new pole and the old one will sit for another 10

Looks like we're getting at least one that's totally new.

 

[Dr. StrangeHat]

They are replacing the old ones, but it takes over 10 years to move the lines to the new pole and the old one will sit for another 10

I've found that CMP is actually pretty good at moving their lines and gear to the new pole within a reasonable timeframe. They've subcontracted with On-Target for a lot of this work. It's the others on the pole (Consolidated, Spectrum, etc.) that dog it and take forever to move their stuff (years).

 

[matt.gree]

So beautiful.

 

[Corey]

This one is called "Entangled Desolation: The Haunting Reality Outside the Holiday Inn" (name credit to ChatGPT)
Pleasant Street Unpleasant View by Corey Templeton, on Flickr

And a more upscale set of wires complementing Hobson's Landing Phase 1:

Hobson's Landing Wires by Corey Templeton, on Flickr

 

[mainejeff]

Hobson’s Landing wires can double as clothes lines or zip lines from some of those balconies.

 

[matt.gree]

Beautiful sunset tonight, if you can see it.

 

[nomc]

Driving recently, I was struck at the raw beauty of this traverse along the recently overhauled section of inner Washington. Look at the sun gleaming off those new poles in the distance!

 

[nomc]

It's shameful when a surrounding town shows up Portland (this is in front of Costco). Imagine how much cable and wood could be saved if we just use mini poles and cut all the corners on the peninsula.

 

[nomc]

This needs to be a mural on the wall in the new entrance to the PMA

They can drape lights on them for a Parisian summer ambience!

 

[MarkHB]

All the talk about poles and wires, but you know what?

My (short and relatively newly-built) street has underground utilities. The nearest pole is on the corner, less than 150 ft from my house although my wiring comes in on the opposite side.

Because of the underground wiring, GoNetspeed won't sell me fiber, since they don't do street openings. Nexium (which falls under the phone company) won't either, at least not yet. One of them left a large coil of cable on that nearest pole, which has been there for a couple of years now. And even though migrating off of my long-standing Spectrum email (which goes back to the 90's) would be a pain, fiber would be sorely tempting.

But for the buried cables.