The question has again been raised in Bathurst Regional Council and again there appears no simple solution.

Councillor Alex Christian used council's December policy committee meeting to call for a four-lane road down Hereford Street to ease the morning and afternoon peak hours, and went even further to suggest that work should start by 2022.

"I don't want it to turn in a Mitre-Suttor-Lambert Street issue where ... council talks about it for 20 years, but nothing gets done," he said.

But even putting aside the ambitious 2022 deadline, that suggestion was quickly rejected by fellow councillor Warren Aubin, who pointed out that four lanes along Hereford Street would be of little practical use if cars were just funnelled back into two lanes at the low-level bridge or when the traffic reached George Street.

Both councillors raise reasonable points but, unfortunately, they're not the first to do so.

The same problems have existed along Hereford Street for years and we're no closer to a solution. And the problems are only going to get worse as more houses are built east of the river.

Council's own projections forecast Laffing Waters will grow by almost 32 per cent between now and 2036.

That's hundreds more homes and thousands more residents moving into the area, and many of them will use Hereford Street on a daily basis.

But it is already at its limit at morning and afternoon peak, with a long bottleneck created across the low level bridge and roundabout at George and Stanley streets.

Flood events create even more problems when the bridge is closed and all that traffic is diverted onto Gilmour Street.

That means raising the bridge will inevitably come under new consideration, along with discussion of another river crossing.

But all this must be done before the new houses create even more of a squeeze along Hereford Street.

Bathurst can never shy from continued growth, but growth must be managed and infrastructure must keep pace.

We never want to see our city become a poor copy of the sprawl we see in the major cities. Proper planning - and patience - should ensure that's not the case.