The city of Montreal was puffing its chest Sunday for completing construction on a new water main on Park Ave. on time as promised, but merchants had a mixed reaction to the city's performance.
In October, workers tore up Park Ave. between Bernard and Laurier to replace a century-old water main.
"It's a fundamental work that we were giving to Montrealers," said Richard Deschamps of Montreal's executive committee. "There are 150,000 people who need that water main to receive water at home."
Deschamps added that work crews put in 12-hour days for six days a week to get the job done on time.
"The job that was promised to be done has been done within the schedule and within the agenda that has been promised," Deschamps said.
At least one merchant was quite happy with the speed of the project considering how major it was.
"We didn't expect them to do it that fast," Javed Iqbal of Fruiterie Mile End told CTV Montreal's Maya Johnson. "We thought they were going to take more time and maybe we were going to lose some business, but no, it didn't happen. We were very happy."
Still, others did feel the effects of the work.
"As the construction moved in, it really became quite brutal," said Valerie Legge, owner of O Jus. "I have a little terrace out front, and people could no longer sit there because it was so dusty and noisy."
The city has launched a marketing campaign in the hopes of drawing more people to the new and improved Park Ave. and help merchants like Legge recoup some of the business lost during the construction. The campaign includes ads on buses, stickers in shop windows, a Facebook page, handing out free reusable bags to shoppers and having animation teams on the street for the next two Saturdays.
Legge calls it a PR stunt, and she's not buying into it.
"It's not getting the clients back here," she said. "It would be much more helpful to have a tax break for the lost revenues that have been incurred."
The project on Park was only phase two of an eight-phase plan, with phase three consisting of three months of work on St-Joseph Boulevard between Park and St-Urbain beginning right after the holidays.
