Why isn't there a smarter way of doing things?

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mdf

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#150695 31-Jul-2014 09:21

The Wellington City Council is currently digging up and replacing the footpath and curb on our street. It's pretty old, and has numerous patches where it has been dug up for stormwater drains, gas and telecoms stuff to be laid down/renewed over the years. I've got no problem with it being replaced.

I asked the contractors whether they were laying conduit or anything similar for the (eventual) UFB rollout. "Oh no - they'll come back and do that later."

"So... they'll dig up the new footpath you've just laid? The one you've had to re-lay because people have had to dig it up?"

"Yep."

I know it will be different contractors and everything, but why oh why can't things be done just a little bit smarter/more co-ordinated? [/rant]

mdf

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#1099025 31-Jul-2014 09:32

And to be clear, I'm not having a go at Chorus. It's not their fault. But wouldn't it be nice if someone (the Council?) could say "We're digging up X, Y and Z streets in a month, maybe our contractors could co-ordinate with yours."

linw

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#1099047 31-Jul-2014 09:53

It does seem stupid, eh. But it has been done this way for ever! Guess it is just too hard to co-ordinate multiple players with multiple time frames.

graemeh

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#1099068 31-Jul-2014 10:01

Utilities companies and councils all through NZ try to coordinate this sort of work but sometimes it is just too hard.

The contractor doing the resealing would not normally lay the ducting but they will try to organise it so that the ducting contractor comes through when the area is already ripped up.

Remember that the ducting contractor is probably already fully occupied doing the rollout so probably doesn't have spare capacity to do a one-off small job.

Behodar

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#1099070 31-Jul-2014 10:02

Several years ago, the local power company (Horizon) contacted Telecom and Clear; "We're digging up X streets to move the power lines underground. Do you want to do anything while we have it all open?"

"Nope", came the response.

Naturally, a couple of months after Horizon's work finished, one of the telcos was redigging...

On the other hand, a side street up here was recently resealed and Chorus appears to have already laid the UFB conduit; there are green pipes sticking out of the ground. UFB work is supposed to start "officially" any day now so it looks like some coordination actually happened with this one :)

Batman

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#1099075 31-Jul-2014 10:10

look that would be way too easy. you think councillors are elected for their planning skill?

eXDee

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#1099170 31-Jul-2014 11:45

When UFF did the waikato, due to their parent being Wel Networks, they aligned a lot of it with power cable upgrades and replacement. Which was nice as it bought some areas forward in the schedule.

Batman

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#1099233 31-Jul-2014 12:31

ok i take that back. but maybe, just maybe, it was the utilities managers that spoke to each other to save the rate payers money and had nothing to do with councillors

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graemeh

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#1099262 31-Jul-2014 13:27

joker97: ok i take that back. but maybe, just maybe, it was the utilities managers that spoke to each other to save the rate payers money and had nothing to do with councillors

None of this has much to do with the councillors.

The councillors' role is governance. They can tell the council managers to coordinate their work with utility companies. The responsibility for actually doing this rests with council staff.

raytaylor

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#1101908 4-Aug-2014 17:44

You will find that alot of the UFB rollout is directionally drilled so they wont be digging up large areas of pavement.

Ray Taylor

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