This pole and lights have been hit or knocked down atleast 3 or 4 times in the last 5 years. Its seen brand new OVX's a few times too. This little area seems to be a hot spot to median knockovers due to the curve in part of the road.
Another edit: 8+ times poles and even pylons have been knocked here
UPDATE: There is suddenly a new aluminum pole suiting the taller heights of the stretch. Cockeyed again with an OVX + AEL125 FCO but on opposite sides. Such fast service, did not even see a knock down this time
Is that the ONLY pole on that stretch that keeps getting hit? Around here they would have given up after the same pole was hit two or three times. On the freeways they just leave the exposed foundation (pull the wires back to the handhole in the ground). In the city or on a non-freeway road, NGrid will install an orange plastic boot over the foundation. It bolts on just like a pole and is maybe 2ft high. They look like this. Sometimes those eventually get replaced with a pole again but others stay forever. If one of the four bolts snaps (sometimes the breakaway couplings they use don't work right and the anchor bolts snap flush with the foundation) they will leave it with no pole. Too much work to replace the foundation or drill the broken bolt out and epoxy a new one in.
Heh, at this rate there should be a "This pole was knocked down __days ago" sign on it lol. Interesting that NGrid used a special plastic boot to cover the base. Over here they'll either bolt a traffic cone on the base to cover the wires, a plywood box over the base, or pull the wires back in the handwell next to the base and leave the foundation exposed.
I'm not sure if they repair pole bases here, they seem to either abandon it or cast a new one which takes 2-3 months for them to do. Most of our poles are direct bury concrete though so they just dig a new hole and place a new pole in.
Around here all the concrete foundations installed since I'd say the 80s or prior are all precast. Both RIDOT and NGrid use them. There is a PVC conduit that is inside for running wires. It's stubbed out to one side where it connects to the man hole (RIDOT refers to it as a hand hole, not to be confused with the pole's hand hole). RIDOT specifies #10 copper conductors from the hand hole to the top of the pole to the light, with the pole grounded at the base.
Yeah I remember you said that you found it strange that we still use cast in place pole foundations. Ahh over here we call them handwells, must be a Ontario term for them since Googling the word only returns results from the GTA. Note sure where we ground our metal poles, the ground lug in the handhole is never connected. I'm guessing ours are grounded at the base too. I think #12/10 NMWU90 cable or THWN wires is used from the handwell to top of the pole wiring.
Handwells are only used with metal base mounted poles here, direct bury concrete poles don't have a handwell, the underground wiring extends to the pole handhole and the splice to the riser is in there.
Handwell makes more sense to me since it's recessed into the ground. I personally call them "manholes", but it's a blanket term I use on any round-cover well in the ground, be it a sewer cover or electrical. When I hear hand hole I think of the ones on the pole, which I don't think they use here. There might be a fuse in there but IMO it makes sense to have the fuse in the hand well since if the pole is hit, the power is disconnected from the hand well, thus no live wires exposed. If the fuse is in the pole, there's still about a foot of live wire, which would trip out the entire circuit. Not to mention the wires going up the poles are #10 here, with #6 copper being spec'ed by RIDOT for the "main run", so that ~60A circuit breaker would let that foot of #10 wire fry before tripping. Unsure what size/rating fuse RIDOT and NGrid use for their lights. I'd imagine probably something generic for all of them like 10A or so.
UPDATE: So I don't think the latest pole was installed because of a knockdown. Just up the road I saw the contractor back at another recent knockdown replacement that also used a shorter pole and they upgraded it with a higher pole so it matches the original height used on the stretch
Yeah hand hole is too easily confused with the one on the pole. I guess manhole would work too lol. I've noticed not every pole here has a handwell so I think they tend to install the fuse and quick connect in the hand hole instead.
Interesting that they came back and upgraded it to a matching pole.
UPDATE: its poured base was slanted again from another hit, and they somehow straightened it out again in -10C weather. It now sports a high aluminum pole with dual AEL 125 FCO's.
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![[Gone] The Abused Pole
This pole and lights have been hit or knocked down atleast 3 or 4 times in the last 5 years. Its seen brand new OVX's a few times too. This little area seems to be a hot spot to median knockovers due to the curve in part of the road.
Another edit: 8+ times poles and even pylons have been knocked here
Keywords: American_Streetlights](albums/userpics/normal_ov1.jpg "Click to view full size image
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[Gone] The Abused Pole
This pole and lights have been hit or knocked down atleast 3 or 4 times in the last 5 years. Its seen brand new OVX's a few times too. This little area seems to be a hot spot to median knockovers due to the curve in part of the road.
Another edit: 8+ times poles and even pylons have been knocked here
Keywords: American_Streetlights")
Probably the last pole that will see LED's on Sandalwood
I'm not sure if they repair pole bases here, they seem to either abandon it or cast a new one which takes 2-3 months for them to do. Most of our poles are direct bury concrete though so they just dig a new hole and place a new pole in.
Handwells are only used with metal base mounted poles here, direct bury concrete poles don't have a handwell, the underground wiring extends to the pole handhole and the splice to the riser is in there.
Interesting that they came back and upgraded it to a matching pole.