On Sunday, Alison Aylward returned home from her ten-day vacation to find her street in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce was under construction. The sidewalks were torn up, and a deep trench had been dug between her driveway and the road. “There was a two-by-four that had been kind of precariously on a diagonal, kind of slapped down over the ditch in front of our, front walkway,” she said. “My poor husband had to manoeuvre his way with four suitcases over that slab.” Aylward says many of her neighbours on Kensington Avenue had time to move their cars to another street, but she had no idea what was coming. Now her car is trapped, and she can’t drive it anywhere. A notice from the borough, delivered while she was away, does not indicate driveway access will be lost. “I’m volunteering for a food bank. I can’t get the food out,” she said. “I can’t get to work, and I can’t Zoom my clients because you hear the noise. It’s pretty substantial.” In a statement to CTV, the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough notes the work is part of the borough’s plan to improve the road network, make sidewalk repairs and infrastructure upgrades. “Unfortunately, traffic disruptions, a lack of parking spaces, the presence of heavy equipment, noise, and dust are inevitable during the course of this work. Before work begins, each contractor distributes a notice to affected residents. In the case of Kensington Avenue, a notice was distributed around July 1.” Aylward and some of her neighbours say the notices came far too late. Neighbour Claude Grillot said he received a notice a day or two before the work started. He saw no-parking signs go up well in advance. Curious, he called 311 and found out road work was coming before he received a notice in his mailbox. Once the work began, “workers went knocking on doors to let people know they would lose access to their driveways the next day,” he said. While he thinks there should have been more advance warning, he’s happy the work on his street is getting done. Aylward also wishes the borough had given more advance notice, along with measures for residents with reduced mobility. “We have a lot of elderly people, we have a lot of young mothers trying to negotiate this with strollers,” she said. The borough said residents should regain access to their driveways by the weekend, but work on the street is set to continue until mid-August.
