When cities repave roads, why do they leave the street ripped up for a couple weeks before repaving?

Question

I was told once it’s because cities project the job to take say 5 weeks, so they rip it up the first week, leave it for 3 weeks, then repave the last week. And they do this so everyone gets a paycheck for the full 5 weeks. Surely there has to be a different reason?

In: Other

Answer 1

Here in NYC they leave the street torn up to allow utilities to do any work they may need to do before it gets repaved. They don’t want the street torn up again soon after so they give the utilities a few weeks to get their work done.
I looked into it after spending weeks having to take a detour on my bike ride to avoid torn up streets.