A new six-month closure of West Broadway Street in Vancouver began on Monday as crews work on the Broadway Subway Project.
Traffic along West Broadway from Cambie to Alberta Streets will be impacted but businesses will remain open.
“If you’re driving eastbound on Broadway, you will be diverted at Cambie around on 8th Avenue for a couple of blocks and you will come back out on Broadway at Alberta street, which sounds very simple, except we’re putting a lot of buses and a lot of vehicles — cars, pedestrians, cyclists — all through sort of the same area that wasn’t designed for them in the first place,” Neil Wyles, executive director of the Mount Pleasant Business Improvement Area, said.
“So, there’s going to be lots of confusion. And lots of issues. I’ve seen some from lessons learned, I guess, from the Main Street closure. I’ve seen some extra safety measures put in, some speed bumps, some barriers, so on and so forth, because people will do what they’re going to do and go through laneways and back alleys.”
Wyles said that if anyone is going through that area, they should allow for extra time, but also that businesses will be open and welcoming customers.
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“There’s a two-block stretch there between Cambie and Alberta,” he said.
“There’s a whole bunch of businesses on the side. It’s going to be extremely difficult to get to them. The laneways are blocked off, again for safety reasons, or they’re difficult to get into. So these businesses are going to definitely see a huge dip in sales and customer accounts if the records from the Main Street side hold true for the Cambie side.”
The area around East Broadway and Main Street reopened in June after being closed for just over four months.
Wyles said business owners in this newly closed area are unhappy.
“There’s been not one thin dime of help from the government,” he said.
“The only thing that we’ve seen is … The Ministry of Transportation, I guess, has changed their wording and stopped calling this a short-term interruption because it’s not.”
The B.C. government has always maintained that it does not provide help for businesses if it considers the disruption to be short-term.
Wyles added that it has been tough for the businesses in the area and it’s been a long seven years for them.
“I know that there’s a bunch of them that are looking to get out, make it to sell,” he said.
“It’s just, I think they’ve had enough and they can’t weather this.”
Wyles said people should still come and visit the businesses but allow for extra time.
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