Just one month after the barriers were removed and the 102 Avenue Bridge opened to traffic, the barriers and pylons are back up in Glenora.
This time, it’s work on the sidewalk on the north side of 102 Avenue raising some eyebrows. The sidewalk is being replaced by a wider pathway.
Joe Hudson was so infuriated he wrote a letter to the editor in a local paper. Hudson doesn’t live in Glenora, but is a commuter. He doesn’t understand why the city didn’t get the work done during the two years the bridge over Groat Road was closed.
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“Why not do it while the bridge is closed? There was no traffic, nobody used 2nd Avenue, but what do they do? They wait until the bridge is finished. And to me that’s just, I don’t like using the word stupidity, but I think it fits in this case.”
“I don’t know who to blame, but somebody should be held accountable,” Hudson said.
However, a city councillor said the city had to do extensive consultation with residents along the multi-use path.
“Sure, criticize away. That’s fine,” Scott McKeen said. “I’m not going to tell anybody that they shouldn’t criticize City Hall, but I think in this case, the problem was due to administration bending over backwards to work with the community and specific residents along that bike way, which is under construction right now.”
“In this case I think it was because infrastructure was working with the community to work out any objections and pinch points,” McKeen added.
A spokesperson for city infrastructure said the two construction projects in the area were in fact coordinated and added if the path and bridge were done at the same time, the bridge opening could have been delayed even more.
The city also said it wanted to balance city-wide traffic needs and the impacts to local businesses with homes affected by the bike route.
That section of the mixed-use path is scheduled to reopen this fall.
With files from Laurel Gregory, Global News