The legislation signed into law by President Biden on November 15th, 2021, will reauthorize surface transportation programs for five years and invest $110 billion in additional funding to repair our roads and bridges and support major, transformational projects. The good news for the power sweeping industry is that many of the infrastructure upgrade projects will require sweepers to complete.
The 'Buy America' provisions, rural bridge rebuilding and the reauthorization of a number of federal-aid highway programs should each bring increased revenue opportunities for sweeping contractors, as well as demand for additional street and construction class sweepers for the manufacturing community.
It’s not too early to contact the general contractors in your area that are likely to get work from this federal money. Determine where you might be able to insert your company into the ‘service chain.’ If you’re interested in becoming a subcontractor with them now is the time to fulfill any needed requirements so as to get onto their RFP list.
For those of you with plans to expand into construction site cleanup, milling support and/or roadway sweeping, but who do not yet have sweepers that can handle the job, now would seem like a great time for that move. Make the local construction and contacts needed to make sure you learn about projects in their respective areas as soon as the details are made available.
Since the lead times for sweeper purchases have been increasing due to supply chain issues, chip shortages and more, also talk to manufacturers’ reps about the various heavier duty sweepers that would be suitable. Get all the information you can now, so you’re ready when the RFPs are made available.
This coming year and beyond have the potential for being very profitable for contractors in this sector. Will you be one of them?
