Here we can often tell when work is planned because all the utilities come through and plant hundreds of little flags and paint lines on the pavement to show where their stuff is and warn workers not to cut into it. The workers of course seem to ignore this and trash power and phone lines wholesale.

When we lived in Chicago the gas company was forced to replace service lines all over the city after a major explosion with casualties in one area. Of course they hired all the cheap contractors they could find to do the work, and broke water mains and sewers up everywhere in the process.