The telephone company this summer dug up sidewalks throughout the Back Bay to install new cabling. Perhaps you are one of the many who inscribed their names into the fresh cement poured along the sidewalk on Beacon Street between Arlington and Berkeley Streets. Or perhaps you have tripped over the temporary patching that runs alongside the First Baptist Church on Clarendon Street.

Both sidewalks, and many others, are a mess. Why is NYNEX doing this to the Back Bay?

Interestingly enough, it’s not NYNEX’s fault. It’s the city’s. The temporary patches that litter sidewalks and streets throughout Boston are a scandal in the making.

NYNEX, Boston Gas, Boston Edison and other utilities must frequently dig in city streets and sidewalks to make repairs and to upgrade equipment. One would think that as part of this each utility would be responsible for putting the streets and sidewalks back to their original condition. And indeed, the utilities would like nothing better than to be allowed to do this. But they cannot.

Instead, Boston requires each utility to pay into a city-controlled fund that is supposed to be used to make repairs. The amount they pay is high: a bond ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 depending on the size of the project. Utilities are required to make temporary patches, but permanent patches are to be made by the city’s Public Works Department using these funds. As many have observed however, the permanent repairs are made only after much delay, if at all. The funds held by the city are often used for other, non-construction purposes, something that is plainly not right.

The utilities have been fighting the city’s repair policy for years, but have yet to make much headway. From the utilities’ point-of-view, the amount they are required to pay to the city often exceeds the actual cost of making permanently repairs. That means that rate payers (which, if you have a phone, use electricity or heat your house, means you) pay more than they need to for their utilities. In effect, it’s a hidden tax on all rate payers.

On top of that, of course, utilities have to suffer through angry phone calls from people like me. They would rather make the repairs, save money, and have the job done right.

Is any resolution possible? In Somerville, several utilities successfully sued the city over a similar policy. Such a lawsuit is being contemplated in Boston as well, but has been delayed as utilities have tried to negotiate a settlement with the city.

Residents and businesses in Boston spend much time making the city look good. Architectural commissions pore over the slightest change to any exterior structure. Crummy repairs such as asphalt patches of brick sidewalks are ugly, unsafe and undermine those efforts. It’s time the city worked with utilities and let them make their own repairs.