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Who doesn’t love a good shortcut down a side street?

Lon LaClaire, that’s who.

A major Fortis B.C. project that began this week will see parts of East 1st Avenue in Vancouver fenced off for months this summer, and that has sent drivers on the hunt for the speediest circuits around the key thoroughfare.

Residents on quiet side streets near First Avenue say they are already feeling increased traffic flow, and that is something LaClaire, the city’s director of transportation, doesn’t want to see.

“That is definitely not part of the plan,” he said in an interview Wednesday. But it is something city staff can help remediate.

The plan LaClaire was speaking of is a traffic management plan that Fortis B.C. developed before it started its work to replace about five kilometres of gas line under East 1st Avenue. LaClaire said third parties like Fortis are obliged to develop traffic management plans around their projects, and the city is responsible for reviewing them.

“The reason for that is it’s hard for us to know exactly what work is involved. They know how deep their trench is going to be or if the connection requires extra width and an excavation, or what’s the duration of that activity,” he explained.