Upset in Upham: Road closure stirs anger, election jockeying
CBC
It's hard to miss the infrastructure project that is causing all the upset in Upham.
Smack in the middle of Route 820 sit large black and orange barriers. A large excavator gnaws at the bed of a brook that flows into the nearby Hammond River.
This scene appeared, as if out of nowhere, on the Tuesday morning after New Brunswick Day, catching residents by surprise.
"They knew it was going to happen, but not when," said Karin Boye, a municipal councillor for the area since it became part of the town of Hampton last year.
"If they had have notified people and said this is going to be done … I don't think the uproar would have been quite as big."
People who normally have a 15 or 20-minute drive into Hampton now face a long detour that doubles the time to about 40 minutes — unless they use Robinson Road, a dirt-road shortcut of dubious drivability, to shave 10 minutes off the longer trip.
Monique Bowes, who lives in nearby Upperton, gave it a go, and suffered a flat tire as a result.
"I don't think it was handled very well at all," she said. "People should have been well aware … before having to scramble."
Child-care arrangements, medical appointments and the local volunteer fire department have all been disrupted by the road closure.
Ticking off New Brunswickers is a bad idea at the best of times, but doing it on the eve of a provincial election – in Hampton-Fundy-St. Martins, a constituency that may turn into a close race — is even worse.
"Even though the project is complex and requires time, this does not excuse the poor communication carried out by the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure," Minister Richard Ames acknowledged in an Aug. 14 Facebook post.
That was more than a week after three candidates from three political parties jumped on the issue, demanding action in a wave of earnest social media posts.
"I think the candidates are trying to show that they care about the people in the riding, and they want to act," said Laura Myers, the Green candidate.
"I think that's great and we're all on the same page with this. We all want to see improved communication in the future."
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