HADLEY — Vehicle congestion from a road widening project begun in April has been a source of frustration for some Route 9 business owners and customers. That traffic worsened Wednesday when a downed utility pole closed all four lanes for several hours.

The incident took place around 11:30 a.m., just west of the entrance to the Campus Shopping Plaza and the Courtyard Marriott hotel. One lane opened in each direction at 3 p.m.

“My business was dead, yesterday,” Sandra Varela, a manager at The Donut Man, 142 Russell St., said Thursday.

The multimillion-dollar Route 9 reconstruction project has cost the business hundreds of dollars per day, she said. Before the construction, the doughnut shop brought in roughly $1,000 a day. Now, Varela said, it’s making less than $300.

Paving crews worked on the corner of Route 9 (Russell Street) and Route 47 northbound while police officers directed a heavy flow of traffic through. The Route 9 entrance to the business was blocked off.

Varela pressed her headset closer to her ears as a drive-through customer ordered. “Two Boston cream doughnuts … you got it,” she said.

The noise from construction is not blocked by the store’s walls, Varela noted. It causes stress for her as she tries to decipher her drive-through customer’s orders through the headset.

Last month she started closing the business at 5 p.m. instead of 7, after months of customer complaints over the struggle to get there.

Customer Sheena Collins of Sunderland said it takes her nearly 40 extra minutes traveling down Route 9 to Northampton — a trip she makes three to four times a week.

“When I do come this way, it’s hell,” she remarked with a long sigh.

Yesterday, Collins was trying to get from Big Y in Amherst to Wal-Mart at 337 Russell St. She wound up circling around and heading home, before she got there.

“All of this construction on our tires … it’s messing up our personal cars,” she said.

Hadley police said in July that the project would temporarily involve pavement patches and steel road plates. These can cause tire and suspension damage if struck at faster speeds, they said.

While avoiding travel in the area can be a headache, Arrha Credit Union employee Andrew Kowalik said, there are plenty of ways.

He said both the Route 9 and Route 47 entrances to the business at 140 Russell St. were blocked off Wednesday, but customers could get to the credit union by taking West Street to Railroad Street to Goffe Street, near The Quarters arcade.

“You find a way around it,” he said.

His co-worker Cheyenne Cerrk lives in Northampton. She hasn’t struggled too much in commuting back and forth to work.

Cerrk has traveled from Northampton to Bay Road in Hadley and then to work on Route 9, avoiding sections of traffic. She could also get home by traveling Route 116 through Sunderland, into South Deerfield and picking up I-91 south into Northampton.

“The cops are doing a phenomenal job of directing traffic,” Kowalik chimed in.

Hadley and Amherst police tweeted traffic updates Wednesday, alerting people to the downed utility pole and lane closures.

Kowalik said the multi-year project is “apparently for the better.” The work this year will widen the thoroughfare from Whalley Street to Middle Street. The project is set to move east over the next few years.

Efforts to contact officials with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation for information on the status of the project were unsuccessful Thursday.

Collins said with a laugh that she wishes they’d construct a different main route to “get the hell out of here.”

“You just got to be patient, keep going, and that’s it,” Varela said.

Sarah Crosby can be reached at scrosby@gazettenet.com.