The Case of the Missing Road Construction Crew

Factual Questions
1

How are road (and city street) construction (destruction) projects scheduled? There is one outside my building in which they tore up the sidewalk for some reason. In doing so, [ol]
[li]They eliminated all the street parking on the block[/li][li]Cut the number of lanes of traffic in half[/li][li]cut off the exit point for the alleyway that runs between our building and the next[/li][li]and (according to the rental office) are violating some kind of fire code the way they’re fencing off the sidewalk in front of the building.[/li][/ol]

When I asked the rental office about it, they said that the crew said it would be a quick turnaround (3 weeks) project.

That was 5.5 weeks ago!!! Not that I can tell what is going on just by looking at it, but the site looks the same as it did 3.5 weeks ago. And I don’t see the crew around anymore.

I’m sure that just because I don’t see something happening, doesn’t mean there isn’t progress going on “behind the curtain,” but I’ve seen this scenario play out almost every time I see road destruction, I’m curious if it ever is as it looks:

  1. Destroy street
  2. ???
  3. Repair street
  4. Profit!!!
2

If there’s nobody doing any work, that’s often a sign that someone, somewhere, ran out of money. If you can’t pay the workers, they just won’t go to work. It’s also possible that the contractor took several jobs simultaneously, and is having his crew work elsewhere instead of on your sidewalk. If you’re concerned about fire codes, you might give the city Fire Marshall a call and see if he can drop by and take a look.