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Paving Quiz – What do crews do when it rains?
Pouring Rain
Answer: Everything but asphalt and concrete work. That’s why weather forecasts keep project managers up at night. The possibility of rain means paving plans turn on a dime. As the saying goes “success favors the prepared” and project managers (PM) are nothing if not prepared. They plan for transportation projects months and often years in advance, doing everything from traffic modeling, environmental analysis and geotech pavement planning, to multiple quality control design critiques and public outreach regarding construction impacts. And that’s just scratching the surface.
PM’s use detailed schedules to keep all the many details on track – take a look at this example (it’s so detailed it’s hard to see!):
Detailed Schedule
The schedule must be adhered to in order to meet the scope, schedule and budget. Luckily, even if there’s bad weather on the horizon, there’s just about ALWAYS something a crew can be immediately re-assigned to do to keep the project on schedule. So, when it rains, the PM will consult the contingency plans included in each schedule and keep the crews and the project movin’.
Posted: August 17th, 2009 under General.
Are those detailed schedule project files ever shared with the public?
Thanks for your question, Michael. We don’t generally distribute the detailed project schedules as they are subject to change based on factors like availability of materials and (of course) weather. For more general information about paving project schedules, click here .
Another great resource if you’d like more interactive information about all scheduled transportation projects (not just paving) is our planned transportation construction page, here. Using a GIS-based tool, you can select a geographic area of Seattle and period of time and then view all planned transportation projects for that time and area. For instance, you can view all planned projects for downtown Seattle occurring July through September 2009. The tool includes information like project manager contact numbers and email, start and completion dates, expected impacts to the street, sidewalks and parking lanes, and a summary project description. Enjoy!