This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Wars.

Oh God! Thank you, thank you, thank you! My whole Dan life has been worth it.

Yes for this moment.

So I was once walking the city with my friend Kathleen, who's an environmental scientist,

and she was pointing out the spray painted markings of letters and arrows that you see everywhere

on the street. The markings indicate where utility lines are running underground so they're

not damaged by construction. And it turns out they're color coded by the American Public Works

Association. Red spray paint means electrical power lines and yellow is natural gas.

And I'm looking this up now on Wikipedia because I don't remember all the details.

Green means sewage and drainage lines. So public works people and construction crews have

their own low-fi augmented reality scribbled right on the street, like a giant map in plain sight.

It's a different way to see the city. But it's not just utility workers. The city also reads

differently depending on your knowledge, your experience, or if you happen to be standing

on a rolling plank of wood. I've been lucky enough to go to these amazing places like Taiwan or

RLA, but I only ever get to see like the weird places that skaters go to, like industrial parks or

some handrail in the middle of a school somewhere. That's our guide today, skateboard photographer,

and radio reporter Andrew Norton. My friend Ariel and I are skating in downtown Toronto,

kind of carving through the big empty corporate plazas. It's hard with a backpack.

I'll give you one of these though. To escape order, the city looks different.

Something I definitely always do is, um, just look for opportunities to escape what I can't,

I can't help myself. We can possibly look for things like ledges or curb cuts.

Monday and stuff that people walk right past. But to escape order, even a pole that's been bent by

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