Groundspeak Portal

In peer review: http://www.waymarking.com/cat/peer_review_vote.aspx?f=1&guid=213d5c05-b55f-4d17-b1b5-6e113ad25e15

Am I missing something here?  Is there something rare or interesting about these in the US. Maybe a "cultural thing" that I'm missing.  

Here in the UK they are ubiquitous, mundane, often dirty, and sometimes they cross over informally into the "public toilets" category recently discussed.

In an attempt to liven them up the bigger ones are sometimes decorated with murals or mosaics, which can go nicely into other categories.

Can anyone argue the case for this one to me? 

Go on ... try.

In this area, not that common.

I used the pedestrain tunnel between the Cadillac (GM) Building and the Fisher Building in Detroit as a step in a letterbox hybrid geocache once upon a time.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=e0b20370-7299-43ed-8178-4badf9b2ee5c

 

 

No they are not rare.  They are quite common.  Only reason people might think they are rare is that they are often areas you would want to avoid anyway.  I can think of a couple that are interesting but most are not.

To my mind, all of the negative comments (dull, inappropriate) about Public Toilets apply to this category, and none of the positive ones (usefulness, architecturally interesting).

you may not exclaim "Wow!", but perhaps you or someone else might find the waymarks in this category useful in some way.

I suppose someone could conceivably find this useful - maybe someone who needs somewhere handy to go to deal drugs/dump litter/commit a mugging.

Thanks for posting about this. I haven't been on waymarking in a while so I've missed a lot of new categories through peer review. But I do get new forum topics emailed to me, so this was just the prompting I needed to log on and vote. 

Someone finds them interesting enough to waymark, I guess.

My question is: why just underpasses under roads?  why no overpasses?  or under/overpasses around other things (railroads, bodies of water...)

I posted that they should bring the idea to the forums, I'm sure others said the same thing in their votes.  I hope they do so we can all hash it out. 

yramc600:

I posted that they should bring the idea to the forums, I'm sure others said the same thing in their votes.  I hope they do so we can all hash it out. 

I agree.  The concept is worthy of at least a discussion, but their execution for this category was poor by being so generic.  They left it too wide open for any old strip of sidewalk under a road.  Not as bad as the oft-threatened "Crosswalk" category, but it could be a disaster if they do not place some limitations.

The limitations need to be developed with the thought of why this site should be visited (remember there are two parts to waymarking, posting and visiting).  Is it architectually or artistically interesting?  Is it historically significant?  Is it a key link between other important sites or otherwise important like a trailhead?

The pedestrian underpass that I am most familiar with is the Museum Campus Underpass in Chicago which links up Grant Park with the Field Museum and its neighbors under Lake Shore Drive.  Its width is large with some public art displayed under 8 lanes of traffic.  Not as smelly as some of the locations Team Sieni is thinking of, but, yes, urine is a common smell.

You're kidding me!    Ubiquitous and mundane, for the most part, here in Korea.  Only thing worse would be pedestrian overpasses!

Well, some of them have shopping areas with them.  In fact, in Seoul, there is almost a second city underground with shopping areas in these underpasses and extending for blocks.  Others, are just plain.  I don't know what I would take a picture of - stairs going down.

Not very well thought through . . .

I'm starting to use the perceived "recreational value" of a category as one of my main tools.

How would one enjoy or use these in that context? I'm not seeing that.

BQ

silverquill:

  I don't know what I would take a picture of - stairs going down.

I figure I could take a photo of some of the gang graffiti but not sure if I could get back out with my camera and gps still in my possession.

I don't know.  I think the idea is kind of pedestrian.

dinoprophet:

I don't know.  I think the idea is kind of pedestrian.

ouch!

What I don't get if the limit of roads with two lanes. I think it would be better if it was limited by the length of the tunnel.

and what about tunnels that are under railroad lines. Do we need a separate category for those tunnels?