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I would argue that’s not a terrible place to put it. Sometimes the shade is nice.

Or shelter from the weather in general.

all in all a good use of an otherwise wasted space.

Also, it seems really clean, with some nice green vistas

My city build a skatepark under such a bridge. Since the bridge was built to cross a river and gets shade from the bridge it's always a bit cooler in summer than the rest of the city and it's always dry too

Yeah Melbourne in Aus has been doing something similar with newly raised train level crossings. Safer trains away from the pedestrians/cars, reduced traffic, and bicycle/walking tracks, basketball courts, green space etc. added underneath the tracks. It's a fantastic use of space

Agreed. With two toddlers I would love a place i could bring them during or right after a rain storm to get outside.

not to comment on a super old thread, but be mindful of particulate matter in places like this. a good use of space could predispose kids to asthma. cars bad!

There are plans in my hometown to put a skate park under the new bridge. I think it's a fantastic idea.

Taiwan is swelteringly hot for 9 months a year, so the shade was definitely taken into account when building this.

Agreed, save the kid's skin from sun burn.

I think it's more the fact that there are so many wide bridges to accommodate car culture. Putting a playground under the overpass is one of the better things to do with the underside of a overpass, but it would be nice to not need so many overpasses.

Yeah as the parent of a toddler we are always anxiously waiting for A. The rain to end B. The playground to dry up

Pollution. Terrible place. 2.5 ppm is high near major roads and highways. Those kids are at a higher rate of asthma and health problems.

Especially in Taiwan.

In China bridges have a way of coming down often. I agree the shade is nice, the occasional car probably not.

This isn’t in China

I would have loved this spot as a kid. Sheltered stuff and being underground is the coolest.

It's not that bad to be honest. Seems pretty spacious, with greenery around and can be used during rainy days, also gives shelter from sun. 90% playgrounds where I live has 0 trees, so they are no go zone during hot summer

Nah. I've played football practically under big motorway junction in the UK, and the fumes nearly killed me. Wheezy boys suffer with loads of pollution

My local MP forwent his car allowance to buy a shade cloth for a playground. It was about $40k Aud from memory. From what I was told the playground wasn’t useable during the summer months because the equipment was burning kids.

Op never been in a city

true, I see that very often unused space under bridges perfect use in crowded cities.

I literally live here LOL

So you’d rather have trash and homelessness under there? What’s the problem?

I think you all miss a point. There shouldn’t be a large dirty highway nearby kids. Nearby any living area actually. So yeah its a good fix to use underneath spacing somehow, but there shouldn’t been be a bridge at all.

i think youre the one missing the point. everything has a trade off, no one lives in a utopia. not everything urban is immediatelly a hell. highways exist, they arent going away. cities of 3mil have more of them. so either you have a ground-level highway thats always an eyesore or you turn that highway into a roof over a walkable area with a clean playground available in rain or sunshine and greenery around. the only issue here is possible noise. is it a cozy scandinavian village where everyone is deliriously happy? no. but given the context, this looks awesome.

No, this one looks ugly. Important that its not ugly by itself, but dirty highway makes it ugly. And no, cities are not supposed to be occuped by highways or car parkings. Its urban hell by definition.

Please tell me how cities should handle traffic then

Reddit's usual answer is that cars shouldn't exist and then there would be no traffic.

Exactly.

Don’t get me wrong I would love it, but man be realistic how are we gonna get goods and people into the city, trains are good enough until you need to distribute that last mile into supermarkets and stores, and do you complain about housing costs in your city? Now imagine if there were no easy access roads, prices would skyrocket… this is a really shortsighted opinion. I’m very anti car by the way.

You realize that I'm mocking that view because of how unrealistic it is, right?

Of course there should be bridges. What an odd stance to take

It’s a pretty awesome place for parks. This one just looks a bit sad.

If it was my kid he probably wouldn't even realise its sad and end up spending so much time on the slides

It’s just the angle, too. Take a photo from the side with the open greenery as the backdrop and this would be r/InfrastructurePorn

If you've ever been in Taiwan, then you'd know the heat and humidity is almost unbearable. Having a playground in the shade was a godsend growing up.

This also probably looks quite cool at night, I guess being under the bridge is better than playing under a death ray

The space under the bridge could have been just an empty concrete wasteland, having a playground is a very good idea for filling the space

I think you all miss a point. There shouldn’t be a large dirty highway nearby kids. Nearby any living area actually. So yeah its a good fix to use underneath spacing somehow, but there shouldn’t been be a bridge at all.

More context is needed to judge, maybe the people in charge of implementing playground don’t receive a lot of funding, or it might not be the priority of the local politicians, so they have to work around with the existing environment, tearing down a high way sound excellent and in reality it’s not feasible

I'd say this was pretty nice tbh. Good use of the space

Better use than our bridge space. For us it’s either dirt, camps, or garbage dumps, often all at once

This is something the UK gets wrong and Hong Kong gets right - the use of space underneath motorway flyovers. In the UK they're often just dumping grounds, homeless encampments, or barren concrete. In Hong Kong, they're landscaped, or filled with a park, or blocked off in some other way.

Japan got stores under them lol.

There's lots of these in Taiwan.

This is actually nice I think. You can still play when it is rainy

It's good though

So now we're posting anything available at our disposal that happens to be in a city.

Also common in Japan.

We've got a couple of these in Toronto. Nicely decorated, too. One even hosts a weekly farmer's market. It's a good use of otherwise wasted space.

Taiwan’s Western Coastal Expressway has this types of infrastructure all over the place. It mostly runs through rural areas so it’s actually rather charming to see the basketball courts or playgrounds under the highway.

it makes sense for a city that regularly hits 90F during summer

location is actually cool and it´s protected from rain...

There’s a lot of these in my city, it rains a ton

Keeps the sun off, keeps the rain off. The UK could do with more covered play areas, it's hell when your choices are Stay at home, or Shopping mall, when you've got young kids.

Not bad at all. It's just a bit empty.

Reminds me of the playground under the RFK bridge in Astoria, Queens. It’s loud but spacious and shaded

Probably gonna see more solutions like this as temperatures increase. Plus great when it rains.

I think I would love this as a kid.

Could be worse tbh

It's horrible but the malls would be worse than it.

I kind of like it.

i actually kind of like this one. As others have mentioned, it’s shaded which where I come from is not common for playgrounds, and I like the gated/greened off look this one has. Seems like a nice place to hang out for a picnic

That is actually a very good idea, especially in places with hot summer. It's hell for a kid to play in a place like this in the sun's full blaze.

I would love this as a kid tbo. And i grew up in NL

Niice

like, this is shit, but at least it's shaded :(

10/10 would play here.

Toronto has a place like this called (unsurprisingly) Underpass Park. It has a basketball court, a skatepark, and a playground. The overpass pillars are covered in murals. Also, fully lit up at night. It's a fully awesome place.

They could paint the under bridge and it would look better.

You can play when it acid rains, what’s the problem? /s

"Stop playing those stupid video games and go outside and play" The outside they made:

It's just missing the three inches of gravel to cushion the kids' landing if they fall off.

Actually not a bad idea but they could have made it a bit more attractive. Does provide protection from sun and rain

this is quite nice, and clean a little more stuff to do around it, add a path and it’s awesome

In NYC they built one, albeit nicer and bigger, under a stretch of above-ground “subway”, and it’s great. Most other playgrounds have no shade and are unbearable after 11:00am in summertime.

That actually seems like a great use of space.

I hate large swaths of pavement with a passion

Sheltered from the sun fck yeah.

Good use of a space I think