New Grates (Photo: David W. Dunlap/The New York Times)

Over the past few weeks at Hillside Avenue and 179th street, a new wave of subway grates are hitting the sidewalks. They are big, skew the bus line where I stand daily and really interesting seeming.

These new grates are meant to prevent subway flooding. D’uh!

I thought that they were meant for people to keep from throwing stuff down into the subway…or maybe something to do with air purification?

But now I know that they’re there so that when a few inches of rain falls next time, the F train will still continue to run instead of shutting down thousands of commuters.

Hooray for the future. The future being right now.