City officials have made changes to a popular traffic corridor on Edmonton’s south side, but the changes have left some living in the area upset.

Up until last week, traffic flowed freely along 106 Street in Pleasantview, but a City of Edmonton pilot project meant to keep drivers from cutting through took effect this week. It’s a change Stuart Tate supports.

“[The street is] an unsafe barrier in the community and it’s not designed for the flow of traffic that’s on it right now,” Tate said.

Tate told CTV News traffic counts show up to 10,000 used 106 Street daily, and many didn’t live in the area.

“In the case of Pleasantview, we’re seeing greater than 40 percent of the traffic on 106 Street was actually passing just through,” City of Edmonton Transportation Engineer Brenda Dola said.

As a result, the community consulted with the City and came up with a plan.

The pilot project was meant to keep traffic away from the street by cutting off southbound access at 56 Avenue.

“Warning signage has been in place for some time, but obviously we’re still surprising some drivers that weren’t anticipating these changes were going to be made,” Dola said.

“It’s a process, it takes 30 days minimum to form a new habit, I think we’re day 6 into this process,” Tate said.

The process will last for two years, and the changes will be monitored to see if they need to be modified.

With files from Susan Amerongen