“a Facebook post from 2018 talking about the sandbags around the grates are supposed to be replaced with permanent raised curbs. Guess it’s taking a while...it’s the government, after all! LOL”
That is what I was going to say. It would look so much nicer. They could make cement seating area around some of them. But since these are open grates doesn’t rain still pour down inside? I know it stops the flood water, but I would imagine it rains pretty hard at times.
We don’t have subways here, but we do have grates in the sidewalk for the underground transformers. I would think there would be the same issue but I never really thought about it. And Nashville gets more annual rainfall than Seattle!
I found a picture of a grate that had the concrete curbing when I was looking for the sandbag pictures. It seemed to be about shin high; maybe they didn’t want it tall enough for seating to keep the homeless from loitering?
I did find this about the NY subway system; there’s a cross-section drawing of the grates. Looks to me like they stair-step the ventilation shafts, plus install drainage. Maybe the drainage can handle normal rain amounts, but not floodwater? https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Chapter_05._Ventilation,_Drainage,_and_Waterproofing