The City of Pullman is releasing a daily weekday schedule on the construction on Highway 270 and Davis Way.

The project is one of many concurrent state, city and private construction projects happening in and around downtown. The city is providing updated schedules from the Department of Transportation on the Highway 270 project and posting them on the city’s social media pages.

The city decided to do this in response to traffic difficulties in the area, said Darby Baldwin, administrative assistant to the chief of police. Each update is posted prior to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, with Friday’s updated information shown for the construction work being done the following Monday.

The schedule is also to help with public frustrations. Drivers experienced long delays throughout the area last week, and some downtown store owners said they have lost business as a result of the projects.

“It’s been absolutely unbelievable with this construction,” Lily Bee’s owner Melanie Hodges said. “You can’t do this to a small business and expect them to stay in business.”

Lily Bee’s, a consignment shop on E Main Street, had to shut down Thursday due to the construction equipment in the parking areas. Crews were tearing up sidewalks for the new “Evolve on Main” development.

“I usually don’t get this frustrated, but when you’re trying to run a business in a college town, that’s already tough,” Hodges said. “Then you’ve got this on top of it that makes it even harder.”

Other store owners, such as Bryce Erickson of B & L Bicycles, which also resides on E Main Street, have not had the same problems with the construction.

“It doesn’t seem to be having a whole lot of effect,” Erickson said. “I mean, shoot, you go to Seattle and this would be nothing.”

However, Erickson said there are likely people feeling a larger impact from the construction projects.

“What you’ve got going is … multiple different constructions going from multiple different entities at the same time,” Erickson said. “So that can create quite the mess. Personally, maybe you should ride a bike. I haven’t had any problems.”

Erickson also said the Department of Transportation held an open house at Sunnyside Elementary School a couple of months before summer to help educate residents and business owners about what construction they would have to contend with for the next few months. However, not many people attended the event, Erickson said.

Some businesses face only minor issues related to construction. The Black Cypress, located next to B & L Bicycles, for example, is only open from 5 – 10 p.m. Construction work on the majority of downtown projects ends prior to dinner service.

“So a lot of the work that is done during the day doesn’t affect us so much,” Black Cypress owner Nick Pitsilionis said, “because we wouldn’t have guests be coming in anyway.”