• Overhead electric service is cheaper to install than underground, costing as little as one-fourth as much per circuit mile. This cost advantage of overhead lines is greatest when compared to undergrounding along established streets already containing other underground structures. The cost advantage is least if undergrounding is done when streets are first constructed. Overhead electric service is more expensive to maintain than underground service. For Burbank, the greatest ongoing expense is trimming trees to keep them clear of overhead lines.

• Overhead service will have more frequent electric outages than underground service because overhead lines are exposed to the gamut of above-ground hazards including bad weather, wandering balloons and errant drivers. Overhead outages will be shorter because repairing or replacing overhead lines takes less time than repairing or replacing underground lines.

As can be appreciated from the points just discussed, one type of service does not have an overwhelming advantage over the other. Depending on the specific circumstance, either approach can provide electrical service that is reliable and cost-effective.

BWP does a modest amount of undergrounding at present. The undergrounding policy the Council adopted in 1991 (per Council Resolution No. 23,213 and explanatory memorandum, attached) attempts to make the most of opportunities provided by new customer projects like the Burbank Empire Center or the recent hillside residential developments. These tend to be the cases where BWP would probably choose to underground even if aesthetics were not a major factor. 

Sometimes BWP will underground lines as part of its ongoing capital improvement activities. When BWP builds a new electric station, it undergrounds the lines that interconnect with the station, at least in the vicinity of the station. When BWP built the original Hollywood Way Station in the late 1980s, it undergrounded several high-voltage lines in the vicinity of Alameda Avenue and Hollywood Way. Occasionally, BWP will underground short segments of overhead lines for engineering reasons, as was done recently in the Rancho Area to address the problem of squirrels causing line outages. BWP�s budget for these sorts of undergrounding projects is part of several capital improvement projects, and averages about $750,000 annually.

BWP also has an annual budget of $360,000 for undergrounding for aesthetic reasons. The Community Development Department has provided requests to BWP in determining the specific projects to benefit from this funding. The City�s redevelopment efforts have also created some areas free of overhead lines, such as the Media City Mall, the AMC Entertainment Center and increasingly, the Burbank Village. Aid-in-construction charges to developers funded a significant portion of the undergrounding.

Undergrounding is one of several elements of community beautification, particularly along view corridors. Once overhead lines are removed, unattractive signage or the absence of trees may become more noticeable. (Like redecorating one�s house, making one improvement leads to making others.) Therefore, a commitment to underground for aesthetics will likely entail other aesthetics-related commitments: reviewing or modifying sign ordinances, adding trees or other landscaping, and incorporating other streetscape design elements.

In some cases, undergrounding may also facilitate street widening and other street modifications for better traffic circulation.

ANALYSIS

Over the past few decades, enough undergrounding has occurred to make a big difference in several areas of Burbank, mostly those that have been closely tied to redevelopment areas. However, absent a change in current policy and funding levels, overhead power lines will persist for several decades (if not forever) in many areas where they continue to have considerable visual impact.

To help Council assess whether or not to accelerate the pace of undergrounding for community beautification, staff will address:

• Amount of undergrounding needed to impact view corridors

• What undergrounding involves

• Policy issues

• Initial implementation steps

Fortunately, staff is able to benefit from the experiences of nearby municipal utilities, especially those of Anaheim and Pasadena, which have adopted undergrounding programs. Having reviewed these and other efforts, staff believes that undergrounding for aesthetics can be made consistent with reliable electric service at competitive rates.

Existing overhead lines. Within Burbank, about 12,000 power poles support 275 circuit miles of BWP�s overhead power lines, excluding service drops and related low-voltage lines. (More than one circuit can attach to a pole, hence the need to make a distinction between circuit miles and street miles). Out of the 275 circuit miles, 173 run along residential rear property lines or along alleyways. The other 102 run down roadways: from residential collector streets like Kenneth Road to major thoroughfares like Victory Boulevard. (There are also 14 circuit miles of overhead lines from other electric utilities.)

If undergrounding priorities were left strictly to utility engineers, they might well focus on the residential rear property lines, where maintenance is highest and access is most difficult. They might also focus on certain alleyways, where maneuvering line trucks are a challenge. However, overhead lines running along the rear of residential lots are often screened by trees, covered patios, garages and other structures.

Where there are elevation differences, an overhead line may mar a panoramic view, but this would not be the case for the majority of Burbank homes. Moreover, converting electric service from overhead to underground could entail considerable inconvenience and cost to residents, more cost than might be justified by the property values within a particular neighborhood.

Of the 102 circuit miles of overhead power lines that run along roadways, about 29 circuit miles are along 12 street miles of major view corridors. Deciding which roadways are view corridors is a judgment call. Staff selected major thoroughfares that surfaced in Council and other discussions, but recognizes that there may be considerable differences of opinion as to which roadways are most in need of beautification.

Some roadways may have several different circuits running along side it. For example, there are segments of Victory Boulevard (north-south) that have five circuit miles of high voltage line for every one mile of street. There are also view corridors where the only overhead lines are street lighting; the other lines run down the alleys in rear. These view corridors include Burbank Boulevard, most of Chandler Boulevard and parts of Glenoaks Boulevard, Magnolia Boulevard and Victory Boulevard.

Undergrounding process and costs. Undergrounding high voltage electric lines involves three major steps:

• Installing an underground duct and manhole system

• Pulling underground cable through the ducts and manholes and making connections

• Removing the overhead lines

When undergrounding for aesthetics, there are two other major steps:

• Getting other utilities to underground their lines

• Converting the customer�s service from overhead to underground

Setting aside for the moment the question of cost responsibility, undergrounding for aesthetics typically ranges between $2.5 million and $4.0 million per mile, depending on the number and type of lines being undergrounded. For Anaheim, the cost is about $4.0 million per street mile; for Pasadena, the cost is about $3.2 million per street mile. Burbank�s mix of lines is somewhere between those of Pasadena and Anaheim, leading staff to adopt $3.5 million per mile as a cost estimator.

For low voltage lines like street lighting circuits, BWP�s cost of undergrounding has been much less, about $0.35 million ($350,000) per mile.

Installing ducts and manholes. The installation work involves opening up the street and creating a trench deep enough (five feet or greater) to require shoring. One or more traffic lanes are usually blocked off during working hours; steel plates can often making these lanes available for traffic otherwise. Business disruption or inconvenience is a likely consequence of construction.

Low voltage street lighting only requires a two-inch conduit at an 18- to 24-inch depth under a sidewalk or near a curb; trenchless construction is quite practical. The conductor is also much less expensive than that used for power lines.

Pulling underground cable. Cable pulling and splicing takes place around the manholes. Although there may be some disruption of traffic and parking, it is not severe.

Removing overhead lines. Once the underground cable has been interconnected with the rest of the electrical system, BWP can remove its overhead lines and the top portion of the power pole.

Getting other utilities to underground their lines. Early in the last century, different utilities realized they could share a power pole rather than set separate poles for their overhead wires. (For example, communication lines need be only 23 feet or so high owing to the low voltage they carry. Power lines, in contrast, must be 35 feet or higher, owing to the thousands of volts they carry.) Even different electric utilities could share a single pole. Unfortunately, this economical practice for overhead construction complicates the process of undergrounding all overhead lines.

A telecommunication company (phone, cable TV, other telecommunication providers) is not automatically obligated to underground its lines when a municipal utility undergrounds theirs. Without an underground utility district or the City�s willingness to pay, the communications lines will remain above ground on shortened poles. Examples of this can be found along Olive Avenue west of Buena Vista Street and San Fernando Boulevard north of Burbank Boulevard.

Private electric utilities such as Southern California Edison (Edison) are also not automatically obligated to underground its lines when a municipal utility undergrounds theirs. Without an underground utility district and the City�s willingness to pay most of the costs, the power lines will remain above ground even if BWP has removed all of theirs. An example of this can be found at the intersection of Alameda Avenue and Hollywood Way, where a 66,000-volt Edison line remains overhead. (The 66,000-volt Edison lines enter Burbank from Glendale and exit into North Hollywood. Among the more visually sensitive areas they travel through are the Media District and Magnolia Park.)

Within Burbank are also power lines from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), which has a 34,500-volt line that runs along West Verdugo Avenue and Main Street; as well as transmission towers along Whitnall Highway that support 138,000-volt and 230,000-volt lines. While it may be technically feasible to underground these latter lines, the costs would run to over $10 million a mile.

Converting the customer�s service connection from overhead to underground. Converting a customer to underground service involves a new path to the existing overhead service panel, or replacing the panel altogether with an underground service panel. Either way, there will be a measure of customer disruption. There may even be a need to find space for a pad mounted transformer. The expense can run into several thousand dollars or more per customer.

Fortunately, many customers along view corridors receive their service from rear lot lines or alleys rather than the street (Olive Avenue, Magnolia Boulevard, Chandler Boulevard, and Burbank Boulevard, for example). For those customers needing to be converted, Pasadena recommends that the same private contractor do the customer�s ductwork and the street ductwork.

Policy issues are easiest when undergrounding street light conductors and most difficult when needing to underground power lines from other electric utilities or converting large numbers of existing customers from overhead to underground service. Undergrounding in established areas (largely commercial) for aesthetics presents three key policy issues:

• Who decides?

• How much?

• Who pays?

Underlying these issues are several already-established Council policies:

• For each customer class, maintain or move to competitive rates, while still maintaining a high level of service.

• Minimize costs through continual improvement while still maintaining a high level of service.

• n the course of doing capital improvement or maintenance activities, minimize inconvenience to the customer.

Under established policies, the City has already undertaken several undergrounding-related initiatives:

• Using aid-in-construction funding as much as possible to support undergrounding.

• Coordinating undergrounding activities among City departments so that a street is entered only once, at the time it needs resurfacing, and not re-entered until it is time to resurface the street again, which should generally be many years later. When perfected, this level of coordination can reduce overall undergrounding expenses by as much as 40%.

• Limiting construction in the street to certain hours and requiring that plating be used to make traffic lanes available during the off hours.

Utility undergrounding is a policy issue. Community policy must determine whether undergrounding for aesthetics is to be undertaken and if so, at what rate. The community�s prioritizing of undergrounding efforts is likely to be an iterative process as the community sharpens its judgment of those areas with the highest aesthetic impact, and pursues other beautification efforts, and the City finds additional ways to lessen the cost and inconvenience of undergrounding.

Staff believes it is likely the community would tend to follow what has occurred in other communities, which is to focus on lines along �view corridors�, where utility lines are highly visible to many motorists, pedestrians as well as those with residences and businesses along the corridors. Staff proposes to ascertain this, perhaps by inviting discussion of undergrounding priorities within existing community forums.

The City of Anaheim�s approach provides an example of a useful starting point for how the community might make its wishes known:

• An Underground Subcommittee oversees Anaheim�s Underground Conversion Program and meets quarterly. It consists of three members from the Public Utility Board (the equivalent of Burbank�s BWP Board) and two members from the City Planning Commission.

• The electrical engineering staff of Anaheim�s utility establishes an Underground Conversion Program Five-Year Plan in accordance with several selection criteria:

• Geographical Diversity

• Available Funds

• Coordination with Public Works/others

• Reliability Optimization

• The Underground Subcommittee annually coordinates with staff to update the plan and consider new projects suggested by the utility. These new projects are expected to conform to the selection criteria.

• Each year, the plan goes through a period of public review and is submitted for the City Council�s approval.

Staff believes it is sound policy of have an oversight committee that reviews, monitors and updates a long-range plan according to definite criteria, and then submits it for public comment and Council approval annually. There are many ways staff and Council could do this: however, a straw proposal might be a committee with BWP Board and Planning Board members as well as a Council liaison. Additional or alternative members could come from recent board applicants or Leadership Burbank graduates. Given that Burbank is only 17 square miles and does not have Councilmanic Districts, the criterion of geographical diversity is probably less important to Burbank than aesthetic impact and opportunities.

The community�s undergrounding priorities may well overlap those urged by the Community Development Department or by City officials concerned with the removal of potential traffic hazards. It is likely, though, that the community will also present staff with issues they had not anticipated.

The pace of accomplishing utility undergrounding. The pace of undergrounding along view corridors should neither be too slow nor too fast:

• Too little undergrounding per year can make the community impatient with the pace of progress. Doing short underground segments makes coordination with other City departments more difficult, and the number of times the underground system needs to attach and unattach from the overhead system increases along with the cost. (Short, isolated segments of overhead line may be eliminated without these drawbacks.)

• Too much undergrounding per year can impose too much traffic and parking inconvenience on the community. It can also frustrate effective coordination among City departments and other utilities with underground structures. In some cases, too much undergrounding will make unmanageable the number of customers who need their electrical service converted from overhead to underground.

The experience of other cities suggests that a good target is undergrounding from about one-half to two miles per year of streets with power lines (more if only street light conductors are involved).

Perhaps a more fundamental constraint would be the amount of available additional funding:

A pace of 0.8 mile per year corresponds to about 2% of revenues from electric rates, and would allow considerable progress within the next 15 years.

Among Southern California municipal utilities, Los Angeles spends the most on undergrounding for aesthetics ($15.0 million annually) followed by Anaheim ($9.7 million) and Pasadena ($3.8 million). Burbank, Riverside and Azusa are in the next tier (between $350,000 and $1,000,000, though Riverside does not as a rule underground transmission lines for aesthetics), while Banning, Colton and Glendale are presently less than $10,000. On a percentage-of-budget basis, Anaheim and Pasadena are leaders while Los Angeles is more like Burbank.

At present, BWP spends $350,000 per year (20% of the annual street light transfer to Fund 129) on undergrounding street light conductors. This level of funding allows a pace of about one mile per year. Present efforts have focused on Magnolia Boulevard, with Olive Avenue next, unless Council gives another roadway (Burbank or Chandler boulevards, for example) a higher priority.

The question of �who contributes (provides funding or cost savings opportunity),� involves several parties:

• BWP

• Other City Departments

• Developers

• Other utilities with underground substructures

• The community

• Customers directly affected by the undergrounding

• Communications utilities with overhead lines

• Other electric utilities with overhead lines

BWP and Other City Departments. BWP and other City departments will continue to underground in as cost-effective a manner as possible, whether or not the pace of undergrounding quickens. Even at the current pace, it will occasionally happen that an undergrounding project for a non-aesthetic purpose will nonetheless improve aesthetics as well. Developers will continue to be a source of aid-in-construction funding that, depending on the project, can help support undergrounding along the perimeter of their project.

The City strives to coordinate its undergrounding activities with other utilities such as the gas company, phone company and other utilities that also have underground structures. Their participation would enable a further spreading of the cost of entering a street and restoring it afterwards.

The Community. BWP has discussed rebalancing and reducing electric rates beginning July 1, 2005. For discussion purposes, suppose that rate reductions of 4% per year were to occur over several years, beginning in July 2005. If the community were willing, the Council could fund more undergrounding by deferring part of this rate decrease on a phased-in basis:

• In July 2005, instead of a 4% decrease, there could be a 3% rate decrease, with 1% of rate revenues set aside for undergrounding in a special fund

• In July 2006, instead of a 4% decrease, there could be another 3% rate decrease, with an additional 1% of rate revenues set aside for undergrounding in a special fund

In this example, there would be an additional $2.8 million of underground funding by July 2006, and the prospect of undergrounding view corridors with power lines in about 15 years (0.8 street miles per year). Many variations of this approach are possible: Pasadena has a special charge equal to 4% of electric rate revenue, and Pasadena charges 4% on the first 1000 kilowatt-hours of electrical usage, with greater percentages for higher usages.

The special fund for undergrounding utilities would be continued until such time as the community determines it to be no longer appropriate or necessary.

Customers Directly Affected By Undergrounding. Besides the normal disruption that attends undergrounding projects, aesthetically-oriented projects may require that some customers convert their overhead service to underground service. Such customers would experience more disruption than would normally be the case, but those who are property owners would also benefit directly from any increase in property values due to the elimination of overhead lines. 

The Anaheim utility bears the cost of conversion up to the first 100 feet of underground line extension from the property line. The Pasadena utility requires customers to front the cost of undergrounding on their property, but will reimburse them up to $2000. The Glendale utility had borne the conversion expense when it undergrounded along a segment of Glenoaks Boulevard (in the vicinity of Central Avenue and Brand Boulevard), but is reconsidering this policy in light of a possible program to underground along Foothill Avenue.  Most communities that underground for aesthetics will reimburse the customer up to some limit. Communities that attempt to have the customer bear most of the conversion costs run into strong opposition.

Communication Utilities. Absent a underground utility district, the City would have to bear the expense of undergrounding the communication lines and may have to accept the telecommunication company�s timing. With an underground utility district, the telecommunication company can recover the cost of undergrounding from its own rate base, provided certain conditions are met. These conditions favor undergrounding busy commercial thoroughfares over quiet residential streets.

Other Electric Utilities. Under current regulations, even with an underground utility district, Edison would only pay about 25% of the cost of undergrounding (the equivalent of building a replacement overhead system and removing the old overhead lines). Without an underground utility district, Edison pays nothing. (Possible exception: street widening projects or other traffic-oriented projects.) Anaheim has finessed this latter problem by concentrating on streets where there are no Edison lines.

At present, the City has not established an underground utility district, although it has the means to do so. Once it does establish such a district, the City must be prepared to underground its own lines within a reasonable period of time, making the issue of coordination especially important. (Pasadena allows four years from inception to completion.

Initial implementation steps could focus on undergrounding in view corridors where the only remaining overhead conductor is street lighting, while setting in motion the machinery to underground in view corridors with power and other overhead lines.  Undergrounding street light circuits along view corridors does not involve dealing with other utilities, nor does it require converting customer services. As mentioned earlier, BWP can do a mile of street light undergrounding per year under current funding levels, and Council can maintain or change existing priorities.

Assuming that any additional underground funding would be timed for July 2005 or later, when electric rate decreases are planned, there is at least a year�s time to prepare for accelerated undergrounding of utility lines. Several community forums could be held to assess:

• The general interest in accelerated undergrounding and to test whether view corridors would be the community�s top priority

• The willingness of affected customers to convert their service from overhead to underground and under what arrangements

• The preferred method of community participation and underground funding

In parallel with holding community forums, staff could propose for Council consideration:

• Revising the City�s current undergrounding policy to reflect an accelerated undergrounding program.

• Reviewing and modifying as necessary provisions of the Burbank Municipal Code relating to formation of utility underground districts.

• For future developments along certain streets, explore having a requirement that underground conduit be installed from the customer�s service panel to the property line.

In addition, staff will continue to coordinate their capital planning and will determine if additional funding mechanisms are needed to enable City departments to adjust the timing of their capital projects so that they can enter a given street at the same time.

FISCAL IMPACT STATEMENT

The fiscal impact of accelerating utility undergrounding would be dependent upon the degree of the program. It is anticipated that the majority of the required funding could come from deferring a portion of the utility rate reductions.

RECOMMENDATION

Staff recommends that Council accelerate the pace of undergrounding for community beautification by deferring part of any rate decreases on a phased-in basis (equivalent to a 1% rate decrease per year for two years), beginning July 2005. In the meantime, staff could focus on undergrounding those view corridors where there are only street light conductors, and getting the administrative machinery in place for implementing the undergrounding of all overhead lines along the other view corridors.

At their June 3, 2004 meeting, the BWP Board unanimously endorsed these recommendations.

GLS:jg

L:\City Council\Staff Reports\Study Session-Undergrounding Lines.doc

Attachments

c:         B. Feng

            S. Georgino

            R. Davidson-Guerra

            R. Morillo

            B. Teaford

            BWP Board

go to the top