Last weekend was cloudy and rainy. Rather than taking photos of cherry blossom I was stuck inside sitting at the computer. Then, following a gust of wind, my internet connection went dead. I phoned NTT (on my mobile) and after confirming that one of the green lights on the modem was no longer lit, then sent around an engineer.

Turns out that the telephone line had been bent out of shape by the branches of a swaying tree. I didn’t ask, but I wonder how many people lose their phone, internet or electricity when typhoons bring much stronger winds. Isn’t it time that Okinawa thought about burying some of these cables?

This isn’t a new idea, a few years ago I had a monthly column in the Asahi Weekly newspaper. Here’s the column from March 2004.

Power to the People

I can see the ocean from my living room window. This may sound idyllic, but running directly in front of my house is a mass of wires. Concrete pillars support various sets of electrical and telephone lines that stretch off into the distance down both sides of the road. Thus, my lovely ocean view can only be seen through a spider’s web of steel cables.

The overhead wiring problem in Japan is widespread and not a new occurrence. Japanese people seem to be resigned to the fact that the sky above their neighborhoods and cities is crisscrossed by an ugly mess of steel spaghetti. What makes this so frustrating is that there is a good alternative: Get rid of the pillars, poles and pylons and send the wires underground.

There are a variety of problems with burying cables, however. Initially it costs more money to bury a transmission line than to hang it in the air. It is also more expensive to repair an underground cable should it be damaged. But the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Every year a large number of power outages are caused by lightning or tree branches coming into contact with power lines. Overhead cables are also susceptible to the effects of typhoons, earthquakes and ice buildup. And while a broken underground cable may be inconvenient to fix; collapsing pylons and live wires in the street are lethal.

Other countries are burying both their high voltage transmission lines and their local distribution lines. After a 1999 storm destroyed large parts of Denmark’s electricity supply network, it started replacing all its aerial power lines with underground cables.  Singapore, meanwhile, has stopped all overhead cabling in the city.

When trenches are dug to bury power cables it also offers the opportunity for other utilities to be placed underground, including telephone, broadband cables and even empty ducts for  future use. Japan has the opportunity to simultaneously revolutionize both its power and communications infrastructure.

The main reasons for burying cables are the environmental and aesthetic benefits. The problem is that these positive aspects are given little or no value when financial calculations are being made. I believe people would rather have their mountains covered with trees than with electrical pylons. They would rather see unobstructed clear blue skies than a sky filled with power lines. They would prefer to look out their windows at the ocean rather than at a forest of concrete poles and a web of wires.

Visual pollution is not a concept that is given much thought in Japan; it comes far down the list of government and industry priorities. It’s time for that to change. It’s time to bring back the beauty of Japan’s cities — and send the wiring underground.