Locator Recognition Article

**wet_boots101** · November 9th, 2009, 02:18 PM

I was thumbing through an old copy of Wired magazine from September '04 and found this. Thought I'd share~!
"The next time you pound the pavement, keep your eyes on the ground. You'll notice the curious spray-painted markings, leaping lines, arrows, crosses, swooshes, and strange acronyms that make up a form of street graffiti that's actually on the street. What do these weird tags mean? // The runes augur the arrival of jackhammers and backhoes. A few days before any urban dig starts, an excavator marks up the designated area, usually in white, and alerts the local underground notification service center. The center puts out a call to the telcos, electric companies, waterworks, and cable outfits that subscribe to the service. The firms respond by dispatching workers with spray cans to map buried infrastructure. // If you know the lingo, you can visualize the dense architecture that sprawls beneath our streets. The paint colors are fairly standard: Red denotes power lines; yellow flags oil and gas; blue is for fresh water; green indicates sewage; purple highlights reclaimed H2O; and orange tags communications or cable TV lines. Some acronyms, like MCI or SBC, are obvious; others aren't. IP, for example, means "iron pipe," and USA stands for "underground service alert" (the aforementioned area slated for excavation). As Mike Hart, a plumber for the San Francisco water department puts it, "I tell my kids that I'm a graffiti professional." - Erik Davis

WHAT THE TAGS MEAN: 1) SBC Communications line; 2) municipal transit pole; 3) no Pacific Gas & Electric lines below; 4) 8-inch water main; 5) plastic high-pressure gas line; 6) water line; 7) no phone lines below; 8) telephone vault and lateral lines; 9) electric lines"