Montreal delays planned roadwork on Dcarie Blvd. in NDG

The city of Montreal says it will put off badly needed sewer repairs on Dcarie Boulevard, after borough officials argued residents are already dealing with too much traffic mayhem.

"They have to approach this in a fashion that respects the fluidity of the neighbourhood and the patience of the people of NDG, said Cte-des-NeigesNotre-Dame-de-Grce borough mayor Russell Copeman.

The work, announced earlier this week, was supposed to close down a lane on Dcarie Blvd. south between Queen Mary and Cte-St-Luc Road for three months starting in June.

But NDG residents are already dealing with heavy congestion due to ongoing roadwork on St-Jacques Street, Sherbrooke Streetand the Turcot interchange.

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"The last thing we need to be doing is building a Berlin wall around NDG," Copeman said.

Residents and merchants agree and say theyve had enough with the ongoing construction in their neighbourhood.

Bunty Bakheri, the owner of Autotronic on Dcarie Blvd., said hes considering moving his store out of NDG.

Theresno business happening nothing happening. With that lane closed over there at the 20, its causing major problems now. Nobody stops now nobody wants to come here," Bakheri said.

Copeman met with city officials today to make his case, and the city agreed to delay the sewer work on Dcarie.

Definitely we should change the date because we cannot afford to have all this traffic on this street. Its impossible to do the job at the same time with everything happening there, said Aref Salem, Montreals executive-committee member in charge of transport.

Salem said the city had planned the sewer work on Dcarie for June 15 because the construction on Sherbrooke was supposed to be completed June 1.

But the work on Sherbrooke is running late, so it agreed to postpone the construction on Dcarie.

The pipes should be changed. The work should be done, and we had a schedule, but well have to change it.

A new start date for the work on southboundDcarieBlvd. will be setnext week.