Phased approach
One corridor at a time
A practical program would pick a stretch of road, finish it, and use what it learned on the next stretch. It would not try to bury every line in Walton County in a single project.
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Study the corridor
Map who owns the poles, which lines are electric, and which are cable or phone. Note driveways, drainage, trees, and pavement that is already scheduled for work. This step produces a feasibility study, not a construction crew.
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Design with the utilities
The utility that owns the poles engineers the new route. On 30A that may be FPL around Miramar Beach or Inlet Beach, or CHELCO along much of the rest of the coast. Other companies on the poles say whether they will move too. Easements are identified where a transformer pad or cabinet has to sit. None of that is a commitment that either utility will take the work.
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Build in sections
Crews install conduit along a few blocks, switch customers to the new service, then move down the road. Through traffic may shift. Local access is the standard expectation, as it has been on the Town of Palm Beach’s phased work.
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Remove poles only when they are empty
A pole stays until every wire on it has a new home. An electric-only project can leave poles standing for cable and phone. That is a common outcome, and it should be said up front.
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Choose the next corridor
After one stretch is done, the county and the utility that owns those poles can look at cost, outages, and disruption, then decide whether a second corridor is worth it. The next stretch may belong to a different utility. 30A is not one company from Miramar Beach to Inlet Beach. Stopping after one corridor is an allowed outcome.
Bundle it with work that is already opening the ground
The expensive and annoying part of undergrounding is often the digging and the restoration, not only the cable. If Walton County, a state road project, or a drainage project is already rebuilding a stretch of pavement, sidewalk, or storm pipe, that is a chance to lay conduit in the same opening.
The Town of Palm Beach’s 2026 project notes still describe this kind of overlap: underground conduit, horizontal drilling, street restoration, and, on some blocks, a watermain. Residents still live with lane closures. Bundling is meant to avoid a second dig. It does not make the construction quiet.
Bundling is an idea to put in a feasibility study. It is not a claim that a 30A road project is already funded for this purpose.
What “phased” rules out. It rules out a sudden order to take down every pole. It also rules out a promise that the whole coast will look finished by a certain year. No year is proposed here.