RUNNING HEAD: Why does construction never seem to complete?

Why does construction never seem to complete?

Benjamin Melendez
University of Texas at El Paso

Why does construction never seem to complete? 2

Abstract
This paper is a study on road conditions in the city of El Paso under which construction
plays a factor and reasons as to why it can take so long. It further discusses delays and other
lengthy processes that construction pertains to such as Environmental impact statements, such as
what an environmental impact statement is and what it does and how it affects the length of the
project. Also discussed is the processes which construction entails, and the conditions which
must be met for even the basics to be completed.

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Report
Construction in the city of El Paso is a process which any resident is no stranger to. At
almost any given point in time within the past decade there has typically been road improvement
happening within the city causing delays and general mayhem for most commuters. What most
people do not realize is that it is not due to lack of motivation and lack of workforce as most
people tend to generalize but rather due to many unforeseeable delays within the process itself
that make it difficult to complete projects within their designated time frames. This coupled with
delays on the corporate side of the workforce cause a project that was projected at two years to
completion can be blown all the way to a decade if luck is not on their side of things.
Construction is a process that takes many years of planning ahead of time with workers in
the field as well as in the office, working in tandem to make sure every step of a commissioned
task gets completed to the best of its ability in the period allotted to the company. As most people
know, a construction project rarely gets completed on time, as per untimely delays and other
reasons, however most do not realize how much goes into a project before one may begin any
pre-construction phase. The main cause of projects being announced and their beginning is the
requirement by the United states legislature to provide, ahead of time, an Environmental Impact
Statement, which details the processes that will be executed as well as research needing to be
done on the area around the site in question of work. This is done to provide accurate
information about what effects the project will have on the wildlife and plant life within the area
as well as how much of the land that would have and the impact such a project could imprint on
the ecosystem and possibly biome where the project is being carried out.
An environmental impact statement is not a simple paper that could be completed in
overnight by a college student with intense motivation, it requires months and more commonly,

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months, to complete due to the enormous amount of research that is required to complete the
Statement. In fact, as time progresses, the trend seems to be showing that the average time
necessary to complete such a form, on average, is going to increase (K. Drum, July 3, 2012),
further

delaying projects coming into reality as the demands placed by the government continue to get
stricter. In conclusion, some details regarding the environmental impact statement are not seen
ahead of time and require additions to the original environmental impact statement delaying the
project until that is taken care of.
Much of the reasons that an individual will notice a project is due to the project being in
an area where they commonly commute through, however that does not make for the delays that
one notices and the frustration that comes with such delays. This coupled with the fact that

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projects can be completed much quicker, for example the southwest ballpark downtown took
only a few years to complete while some road projects such as the interchange at the intersection
of loop-375 and I-10 has been under construction for nearly a decade at this point. A large
majority of projects taken under by companies are given almost urgency levels and based on
such are not only payed but are completed much quicker because of it. A much better example of
this is when a large, and important, piece of infrastructure gets destroyed. Drum says,
[As] the report notes, its quite possible to build large roads and bridges very quickly
under existing environmental rules. Consider Minneapolis. Back in 2007, the citys
Mississippi River Bridge on I-34W collapsed, killing 13 people. It was a widely
publicized disaster. Lots of headlines. Whats more, Minneapolis needed to rebuild the
bridge immediately it was a crucial route with heavy traffic. So, all the local and
federal agencies huddled together to make it work. And they managed to leap through all
the environmental hoops and rebuild the bridge in less than 14 months. Despite its
urgency, the project was not granted a single waiver or exemption from the permitting or
environmental review process. It completed the same NEPA steps as would any typical
transportation project of a similar scope and scale. The only difference was the level of
federal leadership and advanced coordination that occurred. All federal agencies and
project sponsors understood their roles and responsibility and began work immediately
upon hearing of the tragedy (July 3, 2012)
Sometimes in rough weather, i.e. rain, you will see workers making progress towards the
completion of the project and sometimes in the same and even lighter weather there still is
nothing happening to move the project forward. This comes down to little things such as the

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temperature and dryness of the construction surface. Creating large pillars for an interchange is
lengthy on its own but once the structural foundation is set the requirements for laying the base
layer of concrete within the road has different standards than the rest of the concrete. Hass says,
There are incredibly tight restrictions on moisture content in base courses (the layer
below the pavement) and temperature (for both concrete and asphalt). And working with
dirt makes a rain event a multi-day affair while you wait for dirt to dry enough to be
move and compacted efficiently. (June 2013)
Hass has many years of experience within the line of work as a contractor and gives further
insight as to why it is not uncommon to see large stretches of road unoccupied because often it is
simply just not being used.
Most rules incentivizing contractors to be quick say that you pay for each day a lane is
out of use. So that means it costs the contractor no less to occupy the whole length of a
project than just the part they're currently working on. Thus you see long stretches where
it looks like nothing is happening because nothing is. (June 2013)
What he is saying here is that it makes little to no sense from an economic standpoint to only rent
the area the crew is currently focusing on when you can rent the entirety of the area the project
will entail in the future. On top of that there is many other things that must be done, many of
which must take process in a list, one after the other, which requires that the previous step must
be finished and with the amount of concrete and asphalt that is needed to dry and cure, that can
take many weeks of time to complete.
Solution

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There simply isnt a very easy solution to this, other than the city stamp every project
with a sense of urgency but due to the amount of money that would entail such a solution its
highly unlikely that that will happen. The best thing an individual can do is report any workers
getting distracted and not doing their job if they see it and be patient as most citizens know that
one day the sun will shine and the temperature would be higher than ever and the next day we
could be in the middle of a storm with golf ball sized hail shutting down all the major roadways
in the city.
In conclusion, this was more informative than it was in helping solve the problem.
Construction is a tedious and complex process requiring cooperation from many large groups to
complete a project and can be stalled by many reasons, most being unforeseeable.

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Works Cited
Delta (ND). Road Improvements. Retrieved October 23, 2016 from
http://www.delta.ca/services/roads-transportation/overview/road-construction-process
Depleted UF6 (ND). What is an environmental impact statement? Retrieved October 17, 2016,
from http://web.evs.anl.gov/uranium/eis/whatiseis/index.cfm
Drum, K (July 3, 2012). Why does it take so long to build stuff these days? Retrieved October
23, 2016 from http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/07/why-does-it-take-solong-build-stuff-these-days
Hass, M. (2013, June 11). Why does road construction take so long to complete? Retrieved
October 14, 2016, from https://www.quora.com/Why-does-it-take-so-long-for-roadconstruction-projects-to-complete
New York State, Department of Transportation (ND). Why does it take so long to repair the
road? Retrieved October 17, 2016, from https://www.dot.ny.gov/aboutnysdot/faq/length-of-time-to-repair-the-road
The Texas Highwayman (Updated December 31, 2015). Why is there no work being done?
Retrieved October 17, 2016, from http://www.texashighwayman.com/nowork.shtml
ViskerRatio (2015). Why does road construction take so long to complete? Retrieved October
16, 2016, from https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/30wxk9/eli5_why
_does_road_construction_take_so_long_to/