Some residents in Vancouver’s Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood say they’re concerned about the city’s plan to temporarily close a stretch of Adanac Street to vehicles in the New Year.

The road closure will make it easier for crews to replace a pipe on East 1st Avenue starting in January. The city says it’s barring cars from using the Adanac overpass during that time to ensure the residential area doesn’t get overwhelmed with traffic.

“What we’ll be doing for the construction periods is putting in some concrete barriers that would restrict all traffic except transit, bikes and people walking,” said Lon LaClaire, the city’s director of transportation.

Adanac is not an arterial roadway, but it’s important because it’s the only street between 1st Avenue and Hastings Street that crosses over Highway 1.

Those who live east of the highway, however, say they’re upset about the closure and are worried it could become permanent.

“We’re already quite isolated from the rest of Vancouver,” resident Lara Davis said. “Without this overpass, we’re even more isolated from the rest of the city.”

Several neighbourhood amenities lie on the west side of the bridge, including Hastings Community Centre, several elementary schools and Rupert Park.

“Closing this is going to force us onto other streets that are already very congested primary routes,” said Roy Gibbs, who also lives in the area.

LaClaire acknowledged that residents in neighbourhoods affected by traffic interventions often have to take more circuitous routes, but said the benefit is that they get less traffic coming through their community.

Davis is worried about increased traffic volume on Hastings Street, a major road many children cross to go to school.

“For me, the biggest concern is safety of the kids in the neighbourhood,” she said.

The city says it’s also looking at options along Hastings in connection with the overpass closure.

LaClaire added that when the city did a survey of the cars using the Adanac overpass, it found more than 70 per cent of the traffic using the bridge is non-local. He says the city was concerned the number of cars using Adanac Street could skyrocket when 1st Avenue is closed.

Davis, however, also says her neighbourhood wasn’t consulted about the temporary closure, citing a stack of hundreds of emails from area residents making the same claim. LaClaire says the city will be sending letters out about the closure once Fortis BC, the company carrying out the work, confirms the start date of the construction.

While the city reached out to people in the neighbourhood last spring over long-term transportation plans, LaClaire says this temporary closure has more to do with responding to construction impacts.

“[The closures are] temporary in nature. We’ll monitor it closely and check with the community,” he said. “If the neighbourhood is finding it’s working for them, we would keep it as a permanent measure.”

With a report from CTV Vancouver’s David Molko