The trees were much smaller when they were planted - probably just saplings, no more than 5 ft/1.5 meters tall. And they might have been planted before the power lines were installed. As the trees grew, some of their branches began to interfere with the wires, and those branches were pruned back to the trunk. That particular tree had a vigorous lower branch which rivaled the main trunk, and they grew into a V, as if the tree had divided itself in two. The utility company probably prunes any branches that try to grow into the space inside the V, so that there's no risk of a branch breaking in a storm and pulling down the wires. "Tame" trees along streets often have this sort of thing happen to them.
I'm actually old enough that I remember when these trees were planted. They were over 2m to 3 m tall, and were planted directly under the power lines even though that puts them only a very few metres from the street and at least 20 to 30 metres (of parkland) from the river bank.
They were planted closer to the street than the locations of the historic elm trees they replaced, that had been destroyed by Dutch Elm Disease. There is a whole row of them like this, all along this very poshest of streets in our city.
The only explanation I can imagine is that there may have been a plan at some time to run the lines underground, though I think that would have meant uprooting the trees.
The mechanism that makes an occasional tree develop into a Y-shape is still the same, though. Most trees are all on one side of the wire, so they just trim away branches that grow towards it. But sometimes a tree has branches that grow up on both sides of the wire, and the maintenance crews have to prune away any smaller branches that grow towards the middle, so nothing will interfere with the wire.
I strongly doubt that anyone seriously considered digging up the street to run the lines underground. That would have done even worse damage to the trees.
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They were planted closer to the street than the locations of the historic elm trees they replaced, that had been destroyed by Dutch Elm Disease. There is a whole row of them like this, all along this very poshest of streets in our city.
The only explanation I can imagine is that there may have been a plan at some time to run the lines underground, though I think that would have meant uprooting the trees.
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I strongly doubt that anyone seriously considered digging up the street to run the lines underground. That would have done even worse damage to the trees.
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