its still do-able in 2020, just expensive...
I know, but as per the old news articles that I linked to in another thread, it was prohibitively expensive back in the 1950s, 1960s, & 1970s as well, and thus a very contentious issue because of it. When I joke about the technological feasibility I'm actually making fun of the inscrutable selectivity of the mission itself. It was do-able on 30 blocks of downtown proper but not over the rest of downtown. It was do-able in this neighbourhood but not that neighbourhood. It was do-able on this side of the street but not that side of the street.
One of the 1950s editorials made the point that a deliberate long-range strategy involving divided costs would be necessary, in order to make possible the seemingly impossible. Were they ever right about that! Here we are a lifetime later and we still don't have a long-term strategy. When they speculated about what could be accomplished over "50 or more years", do you think they ever imagined we'd be hardly any further along after ~70 years?
Just imagine how different the wider city's look and feel might be today if every development over the decades had chipped in to a program to continue putting all lines underground. What's a more worthwhile community amenity? A distorted and short-lived mosaic on the side of a building, or the complete removal of ugly overhead lines and their awkward sidewalk-hogging poles?
Edited by aastra, 08 June 2020 - 01:13 PM.