Here are some major reason why cities don’t have underground power lines:

1) Cost. $1million/mile to install which translates into hundreds of millions of dollars of which the customers are going to have to pay for.

2) Customers. The outrage over the huge spike in their bills would be gianormous. Many LG&E customers recently sent in letters to the Ky PSC complaining about the current rate increase that LG&E was wanting. If people complain about their bills going up a few percent, imagine the response if their bill were to go up 50-100%. I don’t how much their bills would actually go up, but I can promise you it would be huge. Plus, customers would complain about having their trees dug up so the lines could be buried.

3) Maintenance. Underground power lines have a higher maintenance cost when something goes wrong.

It’s the customer’s fault when a tree branch falls and takes out a power line. People usually do a horrible job of maintaining their trees in the first place. People let their trees grow around or near power lines, then are shocked when the tree falls and takes out the power line. How retarded is that? If people just did a little preventive maintenance, there would be a lot less problems. People can call the utility company if they don’t want to trim back the trees themselves. I also remember a story in the Courier Journal about a year or so ago when LG&E went out and trimmed back some trees and people complained that it didn’t look as nice. Apparently, people would rather have their trees look all nice and pretty and take their chances that the trees don’t take out a power line when bad weather hits. Sounds logical to me. BTW, just in case anyone is wondering, I don’t work for a utility company and I don’t know anyone that does.