Designer Jiae Kwon has proposed an alternative to using personal navigation devices for making your way around a locale:

Map-Hole is a new road guidance tool designed to direct pedestrians and travelers to their final destination using existing elements in the urban landscape. It locates the pedestrian with a starting point and provides information on the exact distance or average walk time to the listed landmarks

Kwon’s proposal would create a cover that would be applied on top of manholes with the center indicating where the pedestrian is currently standing.  Placed around the circle are pointers to sites of interest with the approximate walking time listed next to them.  Kwon also provides a proposal for selling advertising space to local establishments.

The concept is interesting but using the maps may not be clear to all pedestrians.  Plus, as one commenter pointed out:

This is almost exactly like the man hole design a few weeks ago except without rain collecting.

The first one was shut down because man holes are in the middle of the road; where cars, trucks and busses are traveling remarkably fast.

Completely dangerous design, making people look down in the middle of a busy street to get directions that they probably have on their phone/PDA.

Visit the Yanko Design site for pictures of the concept.