#HTE

Today’s Urban Design Observation: Road Crew Cable Management Object

Road crews are a common sight in New York, with orange-vested men working on the street or partially submerged in it. They often have machinery and tools down in the hole, with cables running back to the truck. This presents a tripping hazard. The object you see here, made by California-based Elasco, solves that.

As you can probably guess, the crenellation you see here is a hinge. If you’ve ever seen crews laying these things down, you’ll see the orange portion swings up on the hinge, and inside are channels that they can easily lay the hoses/cables into. 

In this case they’re running ¾" air hose. 

This unit has five separate channels.

The bright orange is a good decision, meant to draw attention to itself so pedestrians don’t trip over it. But I think the molded “CAUTION” was a waste of steel-cutting in the mold, as being the same color as its background it’s hardly legible. Ditto with the electricity icon and the icon of the person tripping, I don’t think those provide any value, being practically invisible.

The textured surface provides good traction, even when it’s raining or snowing.

There are tabs and slots so that these can be extended infinitely. I checked out Elasco’s website and they sell angled units too, so you can go around corners.

These things are made from polyurethane and reinforced with a fiberglass rod and are incredibly strong, able to support 20,000 pounds, the company says. And something we can’t see in the photos is that these things have handles on the underside so that the crews can easily carry them around.

Interestingly, these are cast, not injection molded. The company says that this makes them stronger.

Overall I think this is a great piece of industrial design, even if most people don’t ever notice them.