WAVERLEY: The experience around the closure of Waverley Road to residents for almost five weeks for work is one that HRM needs to learn from and never repeat.
That is one of the reasons, plus the concerns—politely and some not so politely—expressed to Councillor Cathy Deagle Gammon, that she has asked for a staff report on recommending a procedure to be followed when providing public notice of full road closures for recapitalization and maintenance.
“The experience with the Waverley Road closure is not an experience that I would like to see ever repeated again, and nor does any other community I don’t think would like to see have that kind of an experience.”
The representative for Waverley-Fall River-Musquodoboit Valley said she was asking the questions as they were going through the process on what the standard notification was.
“I was advised that at this point there is none,” she said. “This had a significant impact on the community.”
She wanted to thank the residents who did express their concern to her.
“Some people did it politely and some people maybe a little bit less so,” said Deagle Gammon. “At the end of the day, all of it was understandable. This wasn’t a very good experience for the community.
“Everyone knows that the work needed to be done, so it wasn’t so much about that. It was about what is the notification for our community to prepare for five weeks in the summer for a road closure. That’s what the concern was.”
She said one part of that path is communication.
“How do we ensure that there is the best communication possible to the community so that they understand what is happening, why it’s happening, when it’s going to start, when it’s going to end?” she questioned.
Deagle Gammon said the other issue for Waverley Road was the signage.
“Sometimes the signage was so far away from where the actual closure was that again it impeded people’s ability to be able to travel,” she said. “The sign didn’t say local traffic only. So those are the kinds of things that we need to learn from.
“I’m hoping that the staff report will be able to address that and come up with a standard or a policy notification for a full road closure.
“It was something that we need to learn from and not have it repeated.”
