THE UNDERGROUND INSTALLATION OF UTILITIES 397 



structed Federally-insured houses or housings, and (b) require an 

 effective program for undergrounding of utility lines (including the 

 requirement that all public and private new construction and major 

 remodeling include undergrounding) as an element of every urban 

 renewal "workable program" and as a precondition of all Federal 

 renewal, housing, community facilities, urban highway, landscaping, 

 etc., assistance. 



GLENN L. SMITH. Although much of the Nation's ugliness 

 abounds in urban areas, a lot of America's otherwise scenic rural 

 vistas are blighted by a multiplicity of manmade objects d'horror. 

 Leading the field, of course, are billboards, auto junkyards, dilapi- 

 dated housing and scarred, mined-out countryside; but unsightly 

 overhead transmission and distribution utility lines contribute more 

 than an equal share to the total problem. 



Some research is being conducted to bring about a technological 

 breakthrough in undergrounding high-voltage transmission lines. 

 There seems to be no real promise of much being accomplished in 

 the near future to get costs down to practical limits. Thus, we can 

 expect to have the tall towers cut their swath through the valleys and 

 over the hills and mountains for years to come. But what about rural 

 electric and telephone distribution lines? 



Here is an area where much can be done and much is being done. 

 The Rural Electrification Administration estimates 70 percent of all 

 new line construction by its telephone system borrowers will be under- 

 ground. Translated into dollars and route miles of lines, an esti- 

 mated $33.3 million of new loan funds will help construct 28,000 

 miles of rural underground telephone lines. The aesthetic by-prod- 

 uct of this, of course, is a less cluttered and more lovely rural vista. 



Even before buried plant came into being in rural areas the Rural 

 Electrification Administration helped lessen the ugliness of electric 

 lines and poles by pioneering longer line spans, and in dispensing 

 with the use of crossarms and related appurtenances. The longer 

 spans substantially reduced the number of poles needed along the 

 roadways. And this, together with the elimination of crossarms, 

 resulted in much cleaner appearance and greatly minimized the 

 ugliness of above-ground utility facilities. 



The REA-financed electric and telephone systems serve in better 

 than 89 percent of the 3,100 counties in the United States. The 



