Pavement Patois

Once the weather warms up around here road construction projects start popping up like mushrooms.

This year the water company is replacing about three miles of water main along North Ballas, a major road that runs just outside of our condo development.  In preparation, strange painted marks appeared overnight on the sidewalks and along the street.

I was curious what the squiggles meant, and turned to Google for the answer. It didn't take me long to learn that the colors and shapes denote the type and approximate location of an underground utility.

There's a standard code for colors. Red is the color for electric. Yellow marks gas, oil, steam, petroleum, or gaseous materials. Orange indicates some sort of communications cables. Blue is for water lines. Purple symbolizes reclaimed water, irrigation and slurry lines. Green is for sewers and drains. 

Straight lines show where pipes and cables are. The diamond shape is for a fiber conduit.A zig-zag shows something goes in both directions. Triangles indicate conduits. Colored letters indicate the owner of a given utility element, or the material an element is made out of. White writing is some type of note to the construction workers.

Now when I walk around the neighborhood I'm much more aware of what's underground around me.

Five years ago today: The City By The Bay