  We show that many graphs naturally associated to a connected, compact,
orientable surface are hierarchically hyperbolic spaces in the sense of
Behrstock, Hagen and Sisto. They also automatically have the coarse median
property defined by Bowditch. Consequences for such graphs include a distance
formula analogous to Masur and Minsky's distance formula for the mapping class
group, an upper bound on the maximal dimension of quasiflats, and the existence
of a quadratic isoperimetric inequality. The hierarchically hyperbolic
structure also gives rise to a simple criterion for when such graphs are Gromov
hyperbolic.
