CHEVY CHASE, Md. — As road crews work around the clock to repave a stretch of Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase, area businesses are feeling the pain of the gridlock created by lane closures.
Brenda James runs Galaxy Cleaners in the Chevy Chase Lake Shopping Center on Connecticut Avenue.
“I think they could have figured out a better way of doing it and doing it in a quicker way,” she said.
Maryland state officials originally planned for the repairs to take place in off hours, but the repaving became a much bigger job when the area underneath the asphalt was found to be in terrible shape.
Officials say the road should be done sometime on Friday; James hopes that’s the case, because Saturday is their busiest day of the week.
Next door, at TW Perry Hardware, manager Lou Skojec says the cash registers are still ringing, but employees are having a hard time getting to work on time with the delays. Also, Skojec says his delivery drivers are having to use alternate routes to get into D.C.
Skojec says things were worse a couple of years ago when a water main break near the store caused them to lose business for three weeks.
“Connecticut Avenue has been kind of difficult over the last couple years with all the construction,” he says.
Across the street, The Somerville Showroom was empty. Mary Summers, who works there, says since the reconstruction and traffic kicked up “it’s been very quiet inside our store here, which is very unusual.”
She says many customers are calling and asking for alternate directions to the store so they can avoid the delays.
Summers, along with many business operators in this area, just hope crews can get the job done soon so things can get back to normal.
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