Division Street in Pawtucket is reopened to two-way traffic yesterday after city officials lobbied for the change.

The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer

PAWTUCKET –– The Division Street Bridge reopened to two-way traffic yesterday, much to the relief of PawSox President Mike Tamburro and Ferdie’s Key Shop owner Fred Villeneuve.

“Our business dropped off, when they made it a one-way, approximately 40 percent,” Villeneuve said, referring to the customers who came in with keys they wanted duplicated or locks they wanted fixed.

Baseball fans were arriving at games at McCoy Stadium later than usual, Tamburro said, and were having difficulty getting home afterward, with a significant stretch of Division Street one-way.

Things returned to normal when a couple of rows of barrels were moved and a ceremonial strip of yellow caution tape was cut around 10:30 a.m. yesterday.

Traffic began to flow in two directions again. A crew from the Department of Transportation worked to synchronize traffic signals along Division Street so no traffic jams developed. None did, not even during the evening rush-hour, despite the elimination of an eastbound lane.

“It’s moving pretty good,” Harvey E. Goulet Jr., the city’s director of administration, said.

The two-lane Division Street Bridge became one-way, with both lanes eastbound, as part of the elaborate set of detours that the state Department of Transportation put in place when a weight limit was posted late in November on Route 95.

Trucks weighing more than 22 tons ––and later, more than 18 tons –– were detoured from Route 95 between Exits 27 and 28 because of the deterioration of the bridges, parallel to Division Street, that carry Route 95 across the Pawtucket River.

Making the Division Street Bridge one-way was intended to ease the congestion that DOT feared would develop when the trucks that were detoured trundled onto local streets.

But the remedy turned out to be worse than the disease. There was little congestion, and local businesses, including Mr. U.S.A. 1-Hour Cleaner and Ferdie’s Key Shop, suffered a loss of trade.

Customers would call and ask for directions to the key shop, at 234 East Ave., and Villeneuve and his employees would tell them, “We’re right across the bridge,” Villeneuve said yesterday.

But, with the Division Street Bridge one-way between George and Prospect Streets, some customers complained that they would have to drive all the way around the city to get to the key shop, and many took their business elsewhere, Villeneuve said.

“It really did impact us as far as the walk-ins,” Villeneuve said. “The road business still stayed the same. But the walk-in business was hurt significantly.”

A committee assembled by Mayor James E. Doyle lobbied the DOT for a return to the way things were. The transportation department agreed early this year to restore Division Street to two-way traffic, but a couple of utility poles shared by Verizon, National Grid and Cox Communications had to be relocated, and that happened only a couple of weeks ago, when the wires owned by all three companies were finally removed.

DOT maintenance workers then raced to pave the roadway, paint stripes and adjust traffic signals. The completion of the job didn’t come a moment too soon for the PawSox, which, starting last night, began hosting five nights of Fourth of July fireworks displays at McCoy Stadium.

City officials were afraid that the fireworks, always a big draw, would result in gridlock if Division Street between George and Prospect Street remained one-way.

Now that Division Street is two-way again, attention turned to the Route 95 Pawtucket River bridges, 50-year-old structures that are showing significant wear and tear.

The highway bridges will be replaced on an expedited schedule because of the importance of Route 95 not only to Rhode Island, but to the entire Northeast Corridor, the DOT’s acting chief engineer, Kazem Farhoumand, said yesterday.

“Normally, it takes us two to three years’ time to design a highway project and put it out to bid,” Farhoumand said.

“We are hoping to do it in a year-and-a-half’s time,” Farhoumand said, with bids for the construction work being solicited no later than next spring or summer.

jcastell@projo.com