July 2026 Safety Roundup

Welcome to the July edition of the OTW Safety Roundup. This month we are looking at what is happening in crowd safety across public events, aviation, and construction, and right now they are all overlapping. Record crowds are moving through active work zones, critical equipment will not arrive on time, construction prices will not sit still, and the difference between a safe event and a tragic one keeps coming down to planning and physical separation.

• Record Crowds and Airport Construction Are Sharing the Same Space
• Crowd Control Lessons From the World Cup and a Small Town Festival
• Electrical Equipment Is the New Critical Path
• Why Won’t Prices Sit Still?
• Can You Believe It? Almost Nobody Trusts the Construction Schedule

Record Crowds and Airport Construction Are Sharing the Same Space

Crowded planes and airports set records, straining the U.S. aviation system (NPR)

NPR reports that summer 2026 travel is setting records again, right as airports run their heaviest construction schedules in years. Runways are closing for months at a time, major hubs are absorbing steady arrival delays, and some agencies paused construction entirely just to move holiday crowds. A standard is forming around building alongside the public, and the regulations are forming around it: pedestrian protection through crowd control and construction barricades is now being written directly into specs, schedules, and phasing plans.

Crowd Control Lessons From the World Cup and a Small Town Festival

Safety at World Cup games at Gillette a ‘success’ according to emergency departments (ABC News 4)

More than 447,000 fans attended seven World Cup matches at Gillette Stadium, the largest event the venue has ever hosted, and police and emergency departments are calling the operation a success, crediting nearly two years of planning. The playbook behind that result is not complicated: plan early, coordinate agencies, and keep physical separation between vehicles and people. Crowd safety is not a big event luxury. The same planning that protected 447,000 fans in Foxborough protects a county fair or a small town festival, where crowds walk the same streets that cars use. It is on event planners to put the right plan and equipment in place at every scale.

Electrical Equipment Is the New Critical Path

US power companies scramble to secure equipment as surging data center demand strains supplies (Reuters)

Power equipment has become the schedule risk on U.S. construction projects. Reuters reports that utilities and builders are scrambling to secure gear as data center demand strains supply. Switchgear and generators that once arrived in a few months are now quoted a year or more out, and transformers can run past the two year mark. Buyers are being forced to “hurry up and wait,” ordering equipment before a contractor is even hired and buying factory slots years in advance, a risky proposition for any buyer who has to commit money before budgets and contracts are locked.

Why Won’t Prices Sit Still?

Section 122 Tariff Set to Expire July 24, 2026: What Manufacturers Need to Know (IndustrialSage)

For the past five months, most goods coming into the United States carried an extra 10 percent import tax under a law called Section 122, the stopgap the White House reached for after the Supreme Court struck down its original tariffs in February. That law came with a hard 150 day limit, and the clock ran out at 12:01 a.m. on July 24. IndustrialSage’s explainer walks through what was riding on that date: with no replacement, the average tariff rate on U.S. imports would have dropped from roughly 13 percent to roughly 7 percent overnight. The relief never arrived. Just as the explainer warned, replacement duties of 10 to 12.5 percent took effect under a different law with no expiration date, and the separate 50 percent tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper were never set to expire at all. For buyers, the takeaway is the same one the article gives: do not build a budget around tariff relief that may not come, keep the current rate in your materials math, and procure early while the price is locked.

Can You Believe It? Almost Nobody Trusts the Construction Schedule

Only 2% of Owners Fully Trust the Schedules They Receive, SmartPM’s Second Annual State of Construction Report Finds (GlobeNewswire)

SmartPM’s second annual State of Construction report, built from more than 120,000 real project schedules and 10,000 survey responses, found that only 2 percent of owners fully trust the schedules they receive, and just 24 percent of general contractors trust their own updates to reflect field reality. Buyers are responding by purchasing certainty wherever they can find it, and some are going as far as bonding suppliers just to protect against materials failing to arrive. It should not take surety bonds to know whether your materials will show up on time, but that is where the industry is.

Get Safety Barricades at the Right Place, Time, and Price With OTW Safety

For event planners working to keep their guests safe, construction crews that need to stay compliant, and buyers who simply want the right equipment in place on time, OTW Safety can help. Since 1993, OTW has designed and manufactured reliable and durable plastic barricade solutions for crowd control at public events and for job sites across aviation and construction. Every quote comes with pricing locked for 60 days, same day quotes, and on time delivery.

Thanks for reading the OTW July Safety Roundup! We hope you have a safe and successful month and we’ll see you in August!