Businesses brace as feeder main work closes Trans-Canada again

Once again, a stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway is closing for work on the Bearspaw feeder main and the city is urging people in Calgary as well as impacted surrounding communities to conserve water after another day above the threshold.

From 5 a.m. on Sept. 5 until the end of the month, 16 Avenue N.W. will be closed between Bowness Road and 46 Street, but businesses in the area hope customers don't stay away, as many did after the feeder main burst on June 5.

"It was devastating. It hurt our business quite a bit," said Dilnaj Kunar, Bowness Bottle Depot owner.

Both the road closure and calls to conserve water had an impact at Sports Rent.

"Half as busy or a little bit slower than that. ... When the city's telling you not to shower, people don't want to go do sports," said Connor Kurecz with Sports Rent.

Both businesses are hopeful things will be better this time.

"They've been communicating a lot better, and they're promising us that they're going to leave the front entrance open. They don't have to come through our back alley," said Kunar, who said the mayor and city staff have visited his business over the past few weeks.

"They definitely seem to have more communication and more of a plan to reach businesses on 16th," said Kurecz.

"It's going to be a really hot weekend, so we're hoping things still stay busy with people coming on by and we do have our big sale on the 14th." Kurecz added, saying the bike sale is one of their biggest of the year.

While crews do critical maintenance on 12 sections of the Bearspaw feeder main, there is less water available, so the city is urging people to conserve.

Tuesday's water use was 506 million litres, slightly up from the previous day, and well above the threshold of 485 million litres.

"A water-use rate above 500 million litres per day is simply not sustainable," said Francois Bouchart with the City of Calgary.

The city says most Calgarians are cutting back, but is asking everyone to keep it up for a few more weeks.

"It's not that bad. We all could be a little more austere and use a lot less, right?" said Calgarian Brian Franks.

The city says it's handed out six violation tickets so far and may soon lay more of those $3,000 fines.