Considering the options, and the way this vote it going, can we band together and vote on sunken stuff? It appears the majority of us agree on sunken-stairs, but I think the ground-level stuff looks bad. The whole RP aspect of that small space between the stairs and path being a waterway is silly. Especially if train tracks are going in right next to it.
IMO, it looks bad and I personally have always disliked the disjointed appearance of that setup.
I think a sunken path adds texture. Imagine the rails at ground level, framed by a sunken path. It looks more interesting than having rails and road, all at ground level, spanning, what, 10 blocks wide across the whole map?
EDIT: Upon a very quick glance at all the sunken options, it seems if we who like sunken things vote on ONE sunken thing, we will have the majority vote. So I am changing my vote to netherbrick since that is the most popular sunken option.