Is it normal to have construction work on the streets late in the evening?

It’s 23.10 as I’m writing this post, and there is some construction work going on in my street right now. They are using drills and saws to remove the pavement, so it’s quite noisy.

I could understand it if there were some kind of emergency, but they are working on what, until 2 days ago, was a parking lot, and will soon be a building. I can see they are removing the sensors under the floor and the pavement right now. Is this normal in Japan?

11 comments
  1. If that is on the road, seems normal to me, have meet these kind of team several times. Not like they can actually stop traffic in the middle of the day to do it.

    Should you not have receive some paper in your malbox about it tellng you the time and duration ?

  2. Yeah I regularly see maintenance work being done on roads, skewers and other public properties during the evening hours, even on weekends. My guess is they choose evenings to minimize disruption or the flow of people passing by as little as possible.

  3. Normal. One time the workers even put a letter in my mailbox ahead of time, warning me about when it was happening

  4. Yeah.
    They did it just outside my apartment a couple of weeks ago. Until 1 in the morning. That was so much fun!

  5. If it’s a Parking lot, I would say NO. Not normal and the contractor is being very inconsiderate. We’ve had late construction because of gas leaks below the road. So unless it’s for a similar reason, someone just has a timeline for turning the lot into a building (or simply fixing the parking sensors) and is being an asshole.

    I would say 11pm construction on private property warrants a call to the Police about noise disturbance.

  6. Totally normal here to avoid disruption on the roads during the day. Get used to it 🙂

  7. Yeah I used to get this a lot in itabashi. Road works would start around 11pm and go till the early hours. Its correct, you cannot inconvenience cars. People not being able to sleep at all is a small price to pay for not making a few fatties in cars take a different street.

  8. If it’s an artery road, I’ve seen them work over night to get it done to reduce the amount of time it is blocked/delayed during the day. Generally they send out a notice to near by residents.

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