Highways and Highway Transportation

by George R. Chatburn

Telephone and Other Poles.

—The matter of telephone, telegraph, electric light, and other poles is one that will bother. Telephone companies pay no more and not as much directly for the use of the highway as do trucks, but upon the theory that telephone communication is necessary for the transaction of community business and for the general dissemination of information, and from the further fact that any charge made for the use of the right of way would be passed on to the public as a sort of indirect tax, they are in most states allowed to set their poles along the roadside. The poles are more or less unsightly and as far as the beauty of the highway is concerned it would be better if they could be removed. In cities and villages the wires are being carried in cables and in many places under ground.