NEW YORK, NY August 29, 2007 —Thousands of truckloads of concrete are poured in New York every week - for foundations, high-rises and roads - and the numbers continue to grow. Demand for concrete is expected to peak in 2009, when several big projects will be going up at the same time. The World Trade Center site, Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, and the redevelopment of Manhattan's far west side, to name a few. WNYC's Lisa Chow reports on how one concrete producer is managing the workflow.

REPORTER: Nobody likes to sit in traffic, but for a concrete truck driver, thousands of dollars are on the line, because the stuff they're delivering is more perishable than fruit. You can stockpile the raw ingredients, sand, stone and cement, but once mixed, concrete has only 90 minutes from the time it leaves the plant, to get across the bridges, through the tunnels, to get to the site and placed before it begins to harden. So when you see a concrete truck, that barrel on the back is rotating for a reason.

FERRARA: The worst possible thing that could happen is that you get a set up in your barrel because barrels cost 30, 35 thousand dollars. Every concrete producer has had to chop concrete out of his barrel and it's a very expensive screw up. Not a screw up but just happens.

REPORTER: Joseph Ferrara Junior is vice president of Ferrara Brothers, a concrete producer located on the Flushing Bay in Queens. His company is supplying concrete for the new Mets Stadium, the World Trade Center Memorial and the Second Avenue subway.

FERRARA: We're like a pharmacist that fills a prescription.

REPORTER: The sand comes from Long Island. The stone and cement, from upstate New York. Ferrara walks into a small room ... with several computer terminals.

FERRARA: This is NASA. I compare this to NASA.

REPORTER: He points to a large digital map on the wall.

FERRARA: GPS in all the trucks, shows you where all the trucks are at any given time. You can even show Tommy if you click on truck, their speed, like this truck is going 20 miles an hour. This truck is standing still.

REPORTER: The trucks change colors on the map, depending on their status.

MCMAHON: When they’re green and orange, they’re moving. When they’re blue, they’re standing.

REPORTER: Tom McMahon is a dispatcher with Ferrara Brothers.

MCMAHON: Now if a truck has stopped for any more than an hour it turns black, and that gives us an alert to find out what’s going on with that truck.

REPORTER: The 90-minute rule makes concrete production a totally local economy. Developers say concrete contracting jobs have doubled in price in the last 3 years. The cost of raw materials has gone up … but here’s another reason for the price increases. Only a handful of concrete contractors are qualified to take on large, complicated projects. And only a handful of concrete producers ... Ferrara Brothers being one of them …works for those contractors because getting into the business requires big investments in land, equipment and trucks. So with all the work, these companies can be pickier about the jobs and prices they accept.

MIRANDO: Things are good in New York, for us anyway.

REPORTER: Joseph Mirando is a Teamster and has been driving a concrete truck for 18 years. On this trip, he’s delivering what will become 12 cubic yards of foundation to the new Mets stadium. He arrives with plenty of time to spare. He pulls up behind the other concrete trucks, and jumps out to start the remixing process.

MIRANDO: Concrete goes in the hopper, goes through the line, goes through the boom, and it telescopes all the way out to where the guys are working.

REPORTER: Ferrara says with trucks costing 160-thousand dollars a piece, and drivers paid 75 dollars an hour, each needs to make three deliveries a day for his company to be profitable. Last year Ferrara Brothers’ revenues were in the tens of millions of dollars. Its expanding its plant capacity and its fleet of trucks to meet the growing demand. When I asked the president of the company, Joseph Ferrara Senior, what he thinks about the workload, he said, do you see the smile on my face. For WNYC, I’m Lisa Chow.