The following is an op-ed by Rashawn Austin, Director of Safety at Forte Construction Corp:
Construction safety in New York City means more than protecting the workers on a job site. In one of the most densely populated cities in the world, a construction project touches everything around it, whether the residents nearby, the commuters passing through, or the businesses operating next door. Getting safety right means accounting for all of it.
The industry’s scale in New York makes the weight of that responsibility clear. Construction represents a staggering 140,000 jobs across the region and generates an estimated $65 to $69 billion in economic activity annually, according to the New York State Comptroller, making New York the fourth-largest construction economy in the country.
Recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that a worker died from a workplace injury every 104 minutes in 2024, with construction ranking second among all industries for fatalities. With that level of impact comes a responsibility that extends well beyond the job site.
Beneath New York City’s streets lie decades’, and sometimes more than a century’s, worth of infrastructure: power lines, water mains, steam pipes, and communication cables, some of which have been in place so long that they are no longer well documented. Striking one of those lines during excavation can trigger power outages, flooding, or service disruptions that ripple across entire neighborhoods. Preventing those incidents requires preparation before a single shovel hits the ground.
As part of their Safety Plan, construction teams are expected to research site conditions thoroughly, coordinate with utility companies, and contact 811 to locate underground infrastructure ahead of any digging. The consequences of skipping those steps aren’t contained to the job site; they land on the surrounding community.
New York’s transit system adds another layer of complexity. Trains run across 665 miles of mainline track daily, and millions of commuters depend on the system to get where they’re going. Construction crews working on everything from electrical systems and communication lines to tunneling, track work, and structural upgrades have to manage their work carefully to avoid service disruptions and safety hazards.
The scale of that responsibility becomes clear when you consider that Times Square alone recorded nearly 60 million (57,743,486) riders in 2024, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). When the job site and the public share the same space, the safety of every worker directly shapes the safety of everyone around them.
A safety plan that only accounts for the crew on site is incomplete. In a city like New York, construction work is always happening in someone’s neighborhood, near someone’s commute, next to someone’s business. The planning, coordination, and awareness that go into protecting workers are the same tools that protect the community around them. When a project wraps up, the surrounding neighborhood should be in better shape, not just because something got built, but because the process itself was handled safely and responsibly.
RaShawn L. Austin is the executive health and safety director at Islandia, NY-based Forte Construction, a general contracting firm involved in transit and public works projects throughout downstate New York.
