The city is also working with local ratepayer groups and residents on how to improve signage.

Drivers are either not paying attention or are not reading the signs.

“We can’t anticipate how all this would come together,” Moretti said. “When a glitch arises, we have to work together with residents to fix it.”

Moretti spent some time on Rouge Street with the newly installed security guard.

“People are not reading the signs,” Moretti said. “When asked where they are going, they have a blank stare and say, ‘Hwy. 7.’ When you say there is no access to Hwy. 7, people ask ‘Are you sure?’”

Area residents were given a number of parking permits as proof they live in the land-locked area. Visitors will have to stop at security to sign in.

“It’s a tricky situation,” Orr said. “The city is helping, but people are frustrated.”

Not only are parents worried about the increased traffic along a usually quiet street where children play, but drivers are also frustrated at the city’s signage.

There is confusion about some of the wording on the city’s detour signs.

One sign reads, ‘No access to Hwy. 7 via James Scott Road,’ Orr said, which could be mistaken as access to Hwy. 7 via James Scott Road.

Many could also confuse the bridge reconstruction project with the Main Street Markham reconstruction project over the past two years, where there was access to Main Street Markham via side streets, Orr added.

Getting proper signage along major roads, such as McCowan Road, Hwy. 48, Hwy. 7 and even Hwy. 407 was a challenge, as those roads fall under the region and province’s jurisdiction.

For the first week of construction, local resident Ryan Wilock remembers seeing hand drawn or spray painted signs.

“It’s the small details that screw everything up,” he said. “The mess with the signs comes down to poor planning.”

While local residents know the bridge is closed and under construction, it is drivers cutting through en route to home or work outside Markham who pose a problem, he added.

There are a number of problems with the signs, including confusion between Markham Road and Hwy. 48, which are the same stretch of asphalt, lack of signs along 14th Avenue as well as difficulty reading electronic sign boards that face south.

The challenge also comes when directing clients to his home studio or office space on Main Street Markham.

“How do you tell someone how to get here?” Wilock said. “You have to direct them 10 kilometres the other way, only to come back again.”

Based on how construction progressed on Main Street Markham, north of Hwy. 7, Wilock questions the city’s time frame of having at least one lane open by the end of the year.

A month into the reconstruction project, the city has confirmed the project is on schedule, Moretti said.

Crews are working overtime in the evenings and on Saturdays, she added.

Bridge work over the Rouge River is regulated by the province’s ministry of natural resources because the river is home to the Redside Dace, an endangered species.

And that means there is a limited window of opportunity to work on a bridge passing over a waterway, Moretti said.

In 2010, the bridge was given a band-aid repair solution, giving it another five safe years of driving on it. If the city waited until next year — after the election with a new council — the bridge would be at the end of its lifespan, which could be a huge liability.

If anything happened, such as a sink hole or collapse, the entire reconstruction project would have taken longer.

The goal is for the bridge to be reconstructed during the fall and two lanes to open by the end of the year, with intermittent lane closures to complete road surface work.

“I’m confident we’ll reach that mark,” Moretti said.

For more information visit markham.ca