I don't know much about public works, but when you're hiring trades and subs for small residential projects, you pay extra to know they're going to show up and

I don't know much about public works, but when you're hiring trades and subs for small residential projects, you pay extra to know they're going to show up and work on your project until it's done. If you want to minimize costs, you have to accept that it may be slow. They say they'll start on Tuesday, and they actually show up Friday. They do two days of a four day job, and then they disappear for a week. It's not because they're lazy. It's because they have different projects that are more or less lucrative to work on, and they generally prioritize the more lucrative ones.