With major work underway along Victoria Street West and already some big impacts to traffic the mayor of Kamloops admits he is getting an earful.

Ken Christian says he gets the angst but for six months the city has been warning residents and at the end of the day traffic and parking will be disrupted “and there is no way around that.”

“We didn’t just go out Sunday night with a bunch of cones and decide where we might drop them. We have been studying this for months and we have looked at traffic movements. We will change traffic patterns during the course of the project but right now people need to find alternative routes, take alternative kinds of transportation, or just get out there and walk.”

Christian admits there have been some unexpected impacts.

“There are unintended consequences. We have had a lot of people from Heritage House because we have moved some of the parking that is no longer available down in to the Heritage House area. We have people very concerned about the two way on Seymour. We have altered truck routes. Trust me we do not get any pleasure in messing up people’s lives.”

Christian says this week is just the beginning and there is a long way to go in the 13-million-dollar infrastructure project that he calls essential and unavoidable.