ALBURY Council will be armed with the results of a long-awaited traffic study when a forum is held in Thurgoona in February to discuss traffic congestion in the area.
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The council agreed to hold the forum in Thurgoona this week and has invited representatives from the NSW Roads and Maritime Services to also attend.
Engineering director Brad Ferris confirmed the traffic study jointly produced by council and RMS had been concluded after some delays.
Cr Darren Cameron’s push for the Thurgoona forum was unanimously supported by fellow councillors.
“It is incumbent on us to try and get a handle on road and traffic issues in this area before they happen rather than being reactive,” Cr Henk van de Ven said.
“It’s a chance to get on the front foot and be talking to RMS and the community right now.”
Mr Ferris said the traffic study would help shape an integrated transport strategy to be released next year.
Cr John Stuchbery also publicly backed the Thurgoona forum, but no date or venue has been confirmed.
He said the people most affected were those who travelled to and from central Albury and Thurgoona in the acknowledged peak congestion times.
“Thurgoona-Wirlinga is our growth area and traffic to and from that area has been a problem for a while,” he said.
“I’ve been frustrated by the lack of responsiveness of RMS to our various queries about traffic.”
Deputy mayor Amanda Cohn said it was important the forum was held in Thurgoona.
“The council building can be an intimidating place for some people and I’m glad we are reaching out to them by going out to their community,” she said.
Cr Murray King pushed for the RMS to be at the forum to hear from residents.
“We seem to filter a lot of our community feedback through the council to the engineering staff to RMS and it ends up going nowhere,” he said.
“We’ve got a dirty great freeway running parallel to the congested areas which contribute a lot to our problems.”