Here’s a fun story I stumbled across last week, now in today’s Globe. I didn’t realize this, but the city and the private telecommunications companies have been dickering over various issues ever since telecommunications got deregulated and all kinds of companies decided they wanted to have their own cables running through the city to serve their customers.
That’s been a headache for cities as everyone cuts up the road to put in their stuff. Cities are celebrating this week with the news that the CRTC, which apparently regulates all of this, as come up with some resolutions to the various disputes, including who pays for the cost of fixing the damaged roads.
8 responses so far ↓
1 rf // Mar 23, 2009 at 7:11 am
Hey Frances, how about putting some pressure on city hall about the disaster on the north end of the Granville street bridge. It’s a disgrace. They say it’s something to do with asbestos in the concrete. It’s been 6 months and it’s now like driving down a 100 year old unpaved alley.
How can they let it get that bad!?
2 fbula // Mar 23, 2009 at 10:08 am
Hmm, I hadn’t really noticed that. I’ll look more carefully and ask about it
3 blaffergassted // Mar 23, 2009 at 10:28 am
I don’t know if it’s true, but …
I’ve been told that Telus has installed ’switch boxes’ on private property without permission, and now they refuse to pay the owners for loss of use.
4 EastVancouverite // Mar 23, 2009 at 11:32 am
Well this is a positive decision. I get frustrated when I see brand new sidewalks, curb buldges, and decorative paving treatments cut up for utility installation and only a few shovels of asphalt are used to patch the scar. I wonder whether this court ruling applies to sidewalks?
5 Forthingham // Mar 23, 2009 at 7:20 pm
kick the telcos out of our cities!
6 Charlie Harper // Mar 24, 2009 at 5:24 am
Private utility companies have always been responsible to pay for all repairs to public property during their installation. It may take up to a year to have the final repair done.
7 EastVancouverite // Mar 24, 2009 at 12:36 pm
“Charlie Harper // Mar 24, 2009 at 5:24 am
Private utility companies have always been responsible to pay for all repairs to public property during their installation. It may take up to a year to have the final repair done.”
However it is the calibre of the repairs that I take issue with. An asphalt patch job to a sidewalk may well let it be considered “repaired” but in my view it is not fully repaired until it is restored to the state it was in prior to the utility/telecom work.
8 Downtowner // Mar 26, 2009 at 11:03 pm
The alley behind my Georgia Street Condo was torn up by the gas company to lay a new pipe, and now it is a huge mess. The repair job they did is laughable.
Where can I make a complaint?
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