Road repairs restricting access to plaza

Water main repair work in Hamilton’s east end has restricted a portion of the intersection at Barton Street and Nash Road. It started mid-November and isn’t expected to be finished until the end of January at the earliest. As expected there are traffic delays, but it’s the lack of access to a plaza on Barton that has people avoiding it all together. That means business is down and business owners wondering how long they can survive the drop in sales.

Traffic is backed up on Barton Street in both directions. It’s been like this since mid-November when the city started phase one of replacing watermains.

The parking lot at this plaza is usually packed midday. But now that’s not the case. And the lunch rush at the Fool and Flagon Pub is almost non existent.

Mark Nethercot, the Fool and Flagon Pub: “Normally a Wednesday, it’s wing day and normally we are full for lunch and there is 10 people here.

Business is down close to 50 percent since construction in the intersection began.

Nethercot said: “This is the time of year when we are generally trying to stock pile so we are good for Jan. and Feb. which are quite slower months usually.”

This sandwich shop is usually busy during lunch time but not lately.

Judy Pratt is with Extreme Sandwich Plus: “I’ve done 4 sandwiches, that’s bad.”

Last week they closed up shop early because they only made 15 dollars during the normally busy lunch rush.

The city says the water main work has to be done.

Sam Merulla is a Hamilton City Councillor: “The project is a priority we understand the inconvenience, but it’s an investment to protect residence and business in the future from experiencing the storm related flooding.”

Business owners here say they understand that improving infrastructure in the area is very important. But they say if the city could just install some detour signs here along Barton Street it would at least help a little bit. As you can see can’t turn left or right on nash road which leads right into the plaza.”

Gail Carter is with Work Authority: “They can see my store, but they don’t know how to get here.”

Business owners say they have contacted the city and asked for detour signs. The city says this is the first they are hearing about it. But promises within the next couple of days they will address the issue.

There was also sewer repair work done in the same area in the spring causing traffic headaches. Some people wonder why they couldn’t do the work all at once. The city says the work in the spring was emergency sewer repairs and couldn’t wait. The project manager told me that the three large watermains that feed Stoney Creek can’t be taken down all at once so there is no way to do all the work at one time. Part of the intersection is blocked off because there is also a huge pile of dirt being stored for the construction. The city says it will also look into the possibility of moving it to another location if there is one available.