Seeing your street freshly paved is usually a good thing, but not for people living near the corner of St. Jacques and Rose-de-Lima in St-Henri.
“By the time I got to bed, it was starting to be light out, so yeah, I’m a little frustrated,” said Nathalie Malartre, who lives in an apartment building on St. Jacques.
She and other residents were shocked to be woken up by workers re-paving St-Jacques between Rose-de-Lima and Greene overnight.
“It’s very nicely done work, but still, it was extremely disturbing for the night. There was intense noise until about 2:30 a.m.,” said Patrick Martin-Menard, who lives in the same building.
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“We got a bit of peace at around 2:30 in the morning. They were asphalting all night,” Malartre said. She lives on the first floor of the building and said her floors were shaking.
The residents said they were not given any advance warning from the city, prompting some to go outside to ask workers what was going on.
“People started to talk to them and they were very rude,” Malartre said. “If we would just know ahead of time, all this communication and the rudeness from the construction workers wouldn’t have to be.”
So what possibly could have lead the city to do paving work at 2 a.m.? Work is only scheduled to take place between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., the city’s website says.
“You know, on Notre-Dame east, they block half the street off, they work 9 to 5 and it’s causing major traffic. Why in this case do they need to do intensive night work like this?” Martin-Menard wondered.
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A spokesperson for the Southwest borough tells Global News workers were authorized to do the work after hours. With all the traffic and construction going on in the neighbourhood, they just wanted to get it done. The city concedes it should have sent out notices to let residents know what was happening, but did not.
“If you’re going to do such a big work in the middle of the night, give us a notice,” Malartre said. “When they cut the water, they do other things, they give a notice so we’re prepared.”
For the next while, people in the area will be sleeping with one ear open.
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