Bathurst councillor Warren Aubin wants to organise a "think tank" to address the traffic congestion issue near KFC.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The intersection near the fast food restaurant, on the corner of George Street and Durham Street, has become a bottle-neck, especially during lunch and dinner hours, due to the drive-thru queue spilling out onto the road, combined with motorists being held-up at the nearby traffic lights.
Cr Aubin said "it's time something is done" with the intersection.
"We need to tidy it up, get traffic flowing again and get the KFC cars off the road," he said.
"It's something that I've got in my diary that when our traffic committee meetings (they're all electronic at the moment) go back to face-to-face, that we actually have a think tank about that whole intersection because it's not working.
"It's only going to get worse especially as there's more traffic coming out from Kelso."
Cr Aubin said McDonald's, who's entrance is just a little bit further down Durham Street, had a similar problem, with queues building up out on the highway.
"I honestly think need KFC need to look at their actual positioning of their road in and out and that sort of thing," he said.
"McDonald's used to have the same problem, where people use to bank up on the highway, which was just crap. Now their duel [drive-thru] lanes have made a huge difference.
"But KFC, where it is, it's a horrible area."
"There has been a proposal to put in a divider down the middle from the traffic lights so cars can't come down George Street to turn right into KFC, which does cause a bit of a headache for motorists."
Cr Aubin believes a section of the nearby footpath could be removed to improve the traffic.
"If you look at an aerial shot of where the driveway goes in, there's a cutout. I reckon they should be taking the footpath off to straighten it," he said.
"There could be an actual lane meeting up that people can turn in, instead of blocking the whole road, which cars do when they're turning to go into KFC.
"It is a problem and it could take a bit of solving. I'm not sure if we can utilise a bit of that laneway next door, to run some traffic up there. I don't know.
"I've got it down in my diary to bring up a think-tank and see if we can come up with some answers to that problem. It's not good."
The Bathurst KFC restaurant was contacted by the Western Advocate for comment but had not responded by the time of publication.