There’s heavy equipment at work on Bonanza Drive.
Driving the road nowadays, with lines of orange roadwork poles acting as lane dividers, is a gauntlet.
It’s not a situation that is normally conducive to commerce.
Some of the businesses on Bonanza Drive, a normally heavily traveled road that links Deer Valley Drive with Kearns Boulevard, say sales have slumped during the first few weeks of the roadwork. They are also unsure if they should exclusively attribute the dip to the start of the roadwork.
The Bonanza Drive business district is centered just north of the roadwork, but driving the road has become more complicated since the crews moved into place. Flaggers are routinely stopping traffic for short periods of time and there have been suggestions that drivers find another route, even as other signs advertise that businesses are open.
“Business has been down. I think people are just avoiding the street,” says Terry Frank, the owner of No Place Like Home, a furnishings store on Bonanza Drive, describing that some customers have told him they are avoiding the road. “People seem to think it’s an inconvenience.”
He says business dropped by approximately 20 percent in the first few weeks of the roadwork. He expected a falloff, and he would have preferred the crews started the work after Labor Day, when crowds typically thin.
Nearby, the owner of the Mexican restaurant El Chubasco also says business has slipped a bit since the work started. Craig Weaver, though, says he is unsure whether the roadwork or the end of summer has brought down sales.
Weaver says work at the Bonanza Drive-Iron Horse Drive intersection early in the construction was especially difficult on the restaurant. But Weaver says he prefers the work occur during the fall, as is scheduled, which is a normally slow time for business.
“There’s never a perfect time,” Weaver admits, though.
The construction will spread through two construction seasons, with the 2010 work expected have wider impacts on the Bonanza Drive business district. The work this year will generally occur outside the district, but the 2010 schedule puts the crews along the stretch of Bonanza Drive where the businesses are situated.
The crews are installing a water line underneath Bonanza Drive and redoing the road to better manage the traffic. The backups on Bonanza Drive, worst during the ski season, have long caused headaches for drivers, and turning onto the road is difficult during much of the year.
This year’s construction is expected to reach its height between Sept. 8 and Oct. 15. During that period, the crews are slated to close Bonanza Drive to traffic between Deer Valley Drive and Iron Horse Loop.
The roadwork team is providing updates and information about Bonanza Drive on a Web site, with a Friday update indicating there had been an unexpected road closure close to the Rail Trail. The Web site’s address is www.bonanzadrive.com. A hotline has also been set up. The number is 615-5190. The hotline allows callers to leave messages.
The team, meanwhile, has pledged to talk with businesses weekly through the end of the work. One of the people coordinating the outreach efforts had said there had been talks with people at 55 businesses as the work approached.
At White Pine Touring, an outdoors shop on Bonanza Drive, one of the managers says sales in the summer have been down and the start of the roadwork has not significantly changed the numbers. Charlie Sturgis says the people leading the roadwork have provided plenty of information and planned the project well.
“I certainly haven’t had anyone come in moaning and groaning about it,” Sturgis says.