Introduction:

You were already late, but now you have to sit in traffic and it’s all because of
construction that was supposed to be completed months ago, sound familiar? From experience,
this reminds me of a place that I used to live known as the City of Denton Texas. While the city
continues to grow, so do the improvements which also calls for more construction. More
construction, plus more traffic, equals more angry people, and we don’t want more angry people.

Source: City of Denton, 2019

What you are looking at in this picture is all of the marked construction locations in a four-mile-
wide circle in Denton. Just by looking at this, you can almost get a feel for how chaotic it must
be just driving in this part of town, but what can we do about this problem? For this reason, my
CRQ states: How can we mitigate the construction delays in the City of Denton Texas. Here’s
what I found.
Research:
The City of Denton website provides a chart that shows you all of the current, and
completed projects, as well as all of the upcoming projects starting in 2019. From the image
above, you can see that within those four miles, there are a total of 47 construction projects at the
time being. Of the 47 projects, 38 of them are currently under construction, another 18 are being
brought in this year, and only 9 of them have been completed so far (Construction Project
Report). Right off the bat I see a problem with this since the number of upcoming projects
doubles the number of completed projects. This alone is one reason why there are construction
delays in Denton being that there are so many things going on at once. Moving forward, there are
two types of factors that determine delay times, controllable factors and uncontrollable factors.
The construction contract is one that falls under the controllable category and it is one that needs
to be paid more attention to. It is crucial for contractors to fully understand what is said in the
contract/subcontract before the project has even started. Oftentimes, contractors do not obtain a
full understanding of the contract documents until a dispute is raised and they walk through the
contract in detail for the first time (Hibshman).

Another area that falls under

controllable is how they prepare
the schedules for the project.
Schedules that are unrealistic tend
to arouse problems throughout the
course of the construction period.
“Schedules should be well
planned to take into account
contingencies that tend to appear
during construction projects. To
the extent delays do occur, the
schedule must be revised to
properly account for that delay
Source: Adictivo Magazine, 2017 and to implement a plan to
mitigate the delay” (Hibshman). Finally, probably the most important area that I will be covering
is the weather. I say that this one is the most important because weather is something that we
cannot control, therefore, this would fit under the uncontrollable factor. Also, this will be your
biggest reason for delay times but there is a way to work around it, it’s called anticipation.
Anticipating potential obstacles is a proactive way of preparing your team – and client – so that
everyone can respond with quick, effective action in the case that a delay arises (Construction
Delay). Weather reports can be used to look for any weather patterns throughout the years to
anticipate when there will be bad weather. With this information, construction can be planned
accordingly as to not run into any unexpected weather changes that slow down the project.

Next Steps:
Here are some of the next steps that we should take:
• Get feedback from people living in Denton to see how this situation is affecting them.
• Construct research on how other major cities are handling the same problem.
• Research the current budgets for the projects as well as who is in charge of creating the
budget to request more funds in order to help mitigate delay times.
• Write a letter to the people in charge such as the City Councilmen, Contractors, and the
Project Managers.
• Attend town hall meetings in the city of Denton to introduce and keep track of the current
problem at hand.
Limitations:
Seeing it typed out may make everything look simple and fairly easy to solve but in
reality, there are going to be limitations to what extent things can actually be done. Simply
asking for more funds to help a project out isn’t going to help your case. You have to consider
the overall budget that the city has and then think about how many projects there actually are.
Giving more funds to one project may mean that other projects don’t get as much, this would in
turn cause longer delay times at the other construction sites. This brings me to my next point.
The number of projects that the city of Denton has going on at once is a huge limitation
in itself. A city only has so much money, equipment, materials, and workers that they can utilize
and when you have so many projects, its only going to limit itself even more.
Conclusion:
From my research, its clear to see that there are several ways to help mitigate
construction delay times. From simple things like knowing the contract and having everything
planned out before the start of the project, to something that we can’t control like the weather. Of
course, there are going to be limitations to what can actually be done but at this point, even the
smallest things could make the biggest impact on the problem that we are facing today with
construction delay times.
Citations:

“Construction Information.” City of Denton, 24 Mar. 2019, www.cityofdenton.com/en-

us/residents/getting-around/streets-and-construction.

Hibshman, Douglas P. “Search Results for How+to+Avoid+Construction+Disputes.” The

Federal Government Contracts & Procurement Blog, 14 Oct. 2014,
governmentcontracts.foxrothschild.com/?s=how%2Bto%2Bavoid%2Bconstruction%2Bdis
putes.

“How to Mitigate the Effects of Construction Delay.” HSE Contractors, 19 Jan. 2016,
www.hsecontractors.com/blog/mitigate-effects-construction-delay/.