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Not just that but I would also be very skeptical that whatever free standing poles they're erecting are fully compliant with TIA/EIA 222H (or engineer stamp approved drawing for each unique installation location, which will vary with local climate of snow/ice and wind loading), which is the engineering standard for self supporting tubular steel monopoles that have antenna, camera, solar panel appurtenances attached to them.

https://tiaonline.org/press-release/tia-announces-publicatio...

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=TIA+EIA+2...

In general, 222H and its predecessors govern engineering standards for:

a. Self supporting lattice/grid/angle steel type towers.

b. Guyed towers

c. Self supporting monopoles of all types (could even theoretically be antenna/solar/camera attachments as additional wind loading on a wood utility pole sunk into the ground, but more commonly, for steel monopoles)

If you're going to put steel monopoles in the public highway ROW they need to be compliant with both AASHTO standards and also the above.

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They began strapping them to existing light poles here. I took a photo of one and it was gone a few days later. I didn't report it, it just vanished, which I noticed the next time I went for a walk. I want to know why they decided to put one up on my street, it feels like an intrusion.

Existing light poles are designed generally for very specific wind loading of only the lamp fixture on their ends, they're built to a very low cost spec to be cranked out in bulk. And to be a generally round or octagonal or whatever cross section that lets the wind flow around it in a worst-case 90 to 120 mph storm without any extra square or rectangular junk hanging off the side.

Adding appurtenances to one changes their wind loading and reliability. The engineers who signed off on some light pole designs might be unhappy to learn that multiple square feet of wind loading are being added after the fact.

The reason I know this is that in the telecom industry some (less experienced) people periodically try to use COTS light poles for some design that will hold just a few very small light duty sector antennas, or one or two 30cm size PTP microwave antennas in addition to the lamp fixture, as a "Hey I have this great idea to save some money" concept, and learn the hard way that the poles aren't rated or designed for it.

This is the kind of stuff that municipalities and counties absolutely hate. Reporting this stuff generally matters and will get taken care of.

When reporting, if the work of citing standards is done, it makes the report much more likely to go through and have action taken.

In particular 222g, 222h and such have a "reliability factor", which can be summed up as, in a worst case scenario if it completely falls over, within its fall radius, is it going to hit anything or kill anyone?

For example, a self-supporting steel monopole in the middle of a field, that if it falls over is going to hit some corn has a very low reliability factor. Even if it has been engineered to withstand the worst case 120 mph wind with extensive rime ice loading.

On the other hand, if you have a 40 or 50 ft steel pole that's within the highway right away and it might fall over into traffic moving at 70 mph, that's a whole other question.

222G and H and similar do not cover scenarios like being hit by a 5 ton or 10 ton truck, I am not familiar with, but presumably there are also engineering standards for designing poles within the highway right-of-way that have to be able to withstand a certain sort of hit by a vehicle. Or being protected by a certain engineering standard of bollard.