Sites do not exist in isolation from everything else. Once a hoarding is erected in a downtown street, the construction project will pose a public safety threat right away. It may not seem to be the case to the construction team, but in the urban environment, each of these decisions directly impacts the safety of the pedestrians that pass by: placement of barriers, routing of pedestrian flows, or timing of the concrete pouring.
Spatial squeeze of urban infills
Old, crowded cities have a challenge that new development projects lack. Their streets are narrow. The sidewalks are not constructed to accommodate big trucks. The city blocks are smaller, hence the construction projects will have to deal with more corners, more curb cuts, and, therefore, more potential points of conflict between pedestrians and a construction site.
For example, in the urban environment such as Philadelphia, one can be constructing a mixed-use building in the place where the sidewalk width is only eight feet and there is an active bus route on the street. In this case, the job site boundary and the pedestrian zone will literally be the same. Each piece of equipment that is delivered to the construction site, scaffolding that is erected or materials storage that is arranged will take up public space.
Urban infill projects often involve historic buildings, hence the contractors will be facing various issues, ranging from foundations that have been weakened or are not located as shown in the original plans, to facades that require shoring up. All these challenges will make the construction process longer and, consequently, will keep the public exposed to hazards for a longer period of time.
The mistake that is made by construction companies on overcrowded construction projects is that they treat the public space as a resource rather than a responsibility. They may be allowed to close a sidewalk but choose not to do it. Temporary roads will be set up on the very first day but then they will not be monitored anymore. The construction firms will focus on building the building interior while letting the perimeter to deteriorate.
Designing pedestrian detours that work
If closing the sidewalk is needed, the contractor closes the sidewalk. However, the alternative pedestrian route has to be functional. It cannot be a suggestion for pedestrians to hop over to the other side of the road, and it definitely should not be marked just by painting something onto a traffic barrel.
Temporary pedestrian detours should be functional for everybody that would have used the permanently paved sidewalk. Therefore, it should be safe and sturdy pavement. It cannot be loose gravel, nor can it be compacted fill, that may wash away due to rain or be some loose sheet of plywood. Pedestrians walking on the temporary pavement that is adjacent to the active construction site deserve the same level of quality as the future pavement.
As per ADA standards, detectable warning surfaces cannot be left out of temporary pedestrian routes based on their temporariness. The requirements for accessible design and construction stay in effect throughout the whole process of construction. The ramps on grade transitions should meet the slope requirements. If temporary routes are wide enough, they should be wide enough for two-way wheelchair access.
Another aspect that is often left underspecified is the overhead protection. In case the temporary pedestrian route is adjacent to the active overhead work, a canopy or a debris net system protecting pedestrians from falling objects is a necessity rather than an option. The requirements for engineering of these systems depend on the height factor of the work and on the nature of the materials, but the basic requirement remains the same – the pedestrians should not face any danger from falling objects.
Managing sightlines and site-edge conflicts
Construction hoardings are needed, but they can serve as a blindfold. The solid hoarding panel running tightly along the sidewalk edge blocks one’s view at the corners. The driver that is hauling a load of concrete has to pull the delivery vehicle to the edge of the street to find a gap in the traffic, but they will not see the pedestrians stepping out from either direction. The pedestrian steps out of the curb next to the temporary barrier and is unable to see the approaching concrete delivery truck.
The cut-off sightline is the reason why active traffic management should be applied rather than the usual passive traffic warning. At such sensitive access points where construction vehicles cross the public sidewalks, a professional spotter or flagger – the person who is watching the sidewalk crossings – stops the collision that the warning sign misses. Vehicle-mounted cameras and site mirrors are helpful but not the solution: neither of these elements can stop people and vehicles at the same time.
Temporary fencing, equipment staging, portable toilets, and refuse containers should also be positioned to preserve sightlines. These items are not installed randomly where the parking spots are available. It is a design problem, the interaction of the construction processes and public circulation. One should start solving it on the plan sheet.
Slips, trips, and falls on temporary walkways
The most common type of pedestrian injury around the construction sites is not spectacular. It is a pedestrian’s trip over an uneven plate, a slip on a wet timber walkway, or twisting of the ankle in the gap between the temporary paving sections. These events are mundane and totally avoidable and make up a substantial proportion of the injuries that happen to people passing through the active construction site.
There are reasons for failures of temporary surfaces. They have not been installed properly in the first place; they have been installed properly, but then they were not properly maintained, or, most likely, the surroundings of the construction site were changing constantly, but none of the changes that occurred were followed by the redesign of the temporary routes.
Low-grade temporary pathways and surfaces that accumulate water become an issue frequently reported in the accidents. This water stays on the surface, it becomes slippery, and the hazard persists until someone on-site decides to fix it.
A daily inspection procedure that involves checking the public interface of the construction site is not about filling out a stack of checklists, but about preventing dangerous events before they happen. Every contractor operating the sidewalk closure should have an individual responsible for the temporary pedestrian route’s condition in the morning and at the end of the workday with an escalation pathway for problems.
Delivery logistics and pedestrian movement conflicts
Urban construction sites receive deliveries on a daily basis. These are concrete, structural steel, mechanical and electrical equipment, finishing trade material. Each heavy vehicle trip delivering materials into the site is a point of conflict with pedestrians in the surrounding streets. Every heavy vehicle taking materials out of the site is also a point of conflict with pedestrians in the surrounding streets. These numbers accumulate in the process of the day, week, or month.
The best management practice includes off-peak deliveries scheduling – this means that most of the deliveries should be made during the hours before the morning rush to minimize the street space demand. Off-peak delivery does not mean that there are no people around. There are still the active streets, parks, schools, and community facilities that have to handle the minor disruption caused by the delivery vehicles.
Off-peak delivery means that cyclists, runners, and people going to the gym may have to maneuver around trucks, rather than children on their way to school. This is an improvement, but not the solution. This is a shifting of the problem rather than its resolution.
The better solution is low-tech. Provide the delivery truck with a place to park. This is a dedicated interior staging bay where the vehicle will park before the unloading. It is the cheapest way to remove the most hazardous phase of the delivery process from the public realm. Of course, not every site has sufficient space for this, but when it is possible, it should be the intention in the traffic management plan.
The positioning of the site entrances in relation to the intersections, bus stops, and high-pedestrian use areas should be a part of the right-of-way management. Moving the site entrance fifty feet down the block to avoid the school crossing or transit stop costs very little during the planning process but can prevent a major accident.
Municipal regulation and enforcement
It is time for local authorities to intervene when the developers and contractors fail to regulate themselves. In the case of Philadelphia, this would involve the Department of Licenses and Inspections and the Streets Department having a role in reviewing the construction-phase site management from permit issuance to sidewalk closure audits and reviews of traffic control plans.
Most problems usually emerge in the area between the official approval and reality. The traffic control plan has been reviewed and approved, but if the contractor did not install enough temporary signs, positioned the barriers incorrectly, or failed to correct the deteriorated condition of the pedestrian route, the plan approved is not relevant to the pedestrian.
Enforcement capacity matters. Agencies that can react to complaints, conduct unannounced inspections, and impose penalties on developers who violate public safety are the agencies that can create the culture of accountability. The agencies that are understaffed, too slow, and capable only of issuing warning notices cannot. The regulation is as good as enforcement allows it to be.
The public reporting mechanisms – whereby anybody passing by the non-compliant site is able to report a hazard – are underutilized elements of the supervision system. The neighborhood around the problematic construction site is the first to know about the crumbling temporary walkway or moved aside barriers. Such reporting mechanisms allow this information to reach the authorities.
Legal liability when the site planning goes wrong
In case the pedestrians were injured because of poor design and maintenance of the construction perimeter, the situation will be quite complicated. Urban construction sites involve a property owner, a general contractor, and a chain of subcontractors. Each of them has taken decisions contributing to the hazard. Each of them is likely to have a different viewpoint on the responsibility issues. Public road users – pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists – account for more than 85% of fatalities associated with the work zone crashes annually (National Safety Council). This statistic rephrases the question. The construction site safety is not the issue of workers’ protection. It is the issue of people surrounding the site.
In case the negligent site planning leads to preventable pedestrian accidents on busy city sidewalks, the victims need an experienced Philadelphia injury lawyer to help navigate the personal injury claims process. Identifying the party that was controlling the condition that has caused an injury – whether it was the developer, the general contractor, or a specialty subcontractor – requires investigation and legal expertise.
The potential legal liability of poor site-edge design can be high, and it should affect the construction planning process along with the cost and the schedule.
Site planning as a civic responsibility
There is plenty of thought put into designing the building. Probably not as much is put into the process of building it.
The planning of how the perimeter of the construction site interacts with the urban streets around it is not the liability-management practice – or at least should not be treated as such. Pedestrians have just as legitimate a claim to public space during construction as they do without the construction site. The safe, accessible, well-maintained temporary pedestrian routes, proper overhead protection, and managed vehicle-pedestrian conflicts are what it looks like in practice.
