eli5 why are manhole covers in the middle of the road and not on the sidewalk?

Question

eli5 why are manhole covers in the middle of the road and not on the sidewalk?

In: 622

Answer 1

There has to be a better way. Why not put them under the buildings ? Obviously doing that retroactively would be extremely difficult and costly but when designing new cities why wouldn’t the utilities be placed in line underneath the properties ? Then there could be access points on the sidewalks and of course the utilities would have to cross streets but they would be under every single part of every single street, just part of one spot of streets like a crosswalk