Residents in Regina’s south end are losing sleep over construction in the Wascana Parkway area.
The overpass is closed nightly from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. for bridge replacement work and is expected to take three weeks.
The work began Monday August 14th and residents quickly took to social media to express their frustration.
“Last night was hard to sleep through,” said Nichole Schneck, who lives near the construction site.
Norm Price and his family live on Grant Road. He says he understands that construction season is inevitable, but has only been sleeping four hours a night instead of his normal eight.
“I was just shocked that it actually kept going after midnight,” Price said.
“I leave the window open otherwise I get hot, so I guess I end up suffering through the noise.”
South end resident, Chloe Potovszky has a direct view of the overpass from her bedroom window and finds the overnight noise extremely loud.
“The most prevalent I would hear is the hammering kind of noises.”
She says closing the window helps to drown it out, but because she doesn’t have air conditioning it means an uncomfortably warm sleep.
“If I shut my window it works, but you get like no breeze. At one point I woke up at 2 a.m. and was like ‘Oh yeah it will be done now’ and then I realized that work is right till 6 a.m.,” Potovszky said.
Schneck does have air conditioning but says she still finds the noise to be very disruptive through her closed window.
“I heard every time they had power tools on, even with my windows closed. Now thankfully they didn’t wake my kids last night, but it’s tough to sleep through and I work a day job.”
The city says they have not received any formal complaints and that they were not available for an on-camera interview regarding the residential concerns. However, they did release the following statement on behalf of Norman Kyle, Director of Roadways and Transportation.
“This construction is an important infrastructure upgrade that is required for public safety. This work will extend the service life of the overpass and provide savings on future maintenance cost.
The night construction is being undertaken to reduce the impact to the travelling public during the peak daytime commutes. All efforts have been made to reduce inconvenience to the motoring public, we thank residents for their patience and understanding while this important work is being completed.”