There are construction projects happening all over the city of Fort Worth these days. But one project in particular, where it seems work has stopped, is frustrating residents, businesses and drivers alike.
Camp Bowie Boulevard is not a sleepy country road, especially given the traffic detours of the last three months between Montgomery Street and Belle Place.
"It's a real fast cut through," said Charmaine Crosley, who works at Sandra Sampson Interiors. "I'm surprised we haven't had more accidents out here out front. We do hear people tooting horns and a lot of frustration.
Crosley can see that frustration just by looking out the building's windows, as the closure and construction is right out front. Driving in, she experiences the frustrations created by the Tulsa Way Drainage Improvement project, which should reduce flood risk on side streets but also required some work on Camp Bowie.
The work started over the summer, first with eastbound lanes being completely shut down and then switching to westbound lanes in late July. Traffic is diverted into one lane of traffic each way. With businesses lining the boulevard that often leads to back-ups, close calls and inconveniences.
Crosley said vendors have had issues getting into their parking lot and some have even simply avoided making deliveries.
"It's been quite frustrating, not only on our end, but on our vendors and our customers," Crosley said.
In the contract for the nearly $2.2 million project it says "time is of the essence," but recently time has stood still on the segment of the construction site that impacts Camp Bowie traffic.
Several businesses say they haven't seen workers on the street since before last week. Many find it troubling that a major street is shutdown with no work happening.
"If you look out there today there's no one working" Crosley said.
The city's storm water department is over seeing the work on the project. A spokesperson says work indeed stopped on that section of the project last Wednesday, but should resume on Tuesday.
The reason for the delay is a bit complicated, but it involves a dispute over the price of pouring a concrete base for the sections of Camp Bowie needing to be repaired following the installation of drainage pipes. The subcontractor and general contractor have sorted that out and the subcontractor will now pour the concrete in addition to its initial job of replacing the bricks removed from the boulevard for construction.
The city says that work should last until the end of next week but that the road could likely re-open to normal traffic by Sept. 28. That's an end-date that residents and businesses will certainly be glad to hear about after months of odd traffic patterns and a week where it seemed no work was getting done.
"We're just anxious to get it taken care of," Crosley said.
