THE ugliness of the Hume Freeway through Albury and Wodonga has sparked a call for councils to takeover its upkeep from roads bodies.
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Albury councillor Murray King pointed to two-metre high grass, animal carcasses, rubbish and graffiti along the road which were disfiguring the Twin Cities.
"It is a poor reflection of Albury and Wodonga that our gateways are in such bad condition and both of them are controlled by the relative state governments," Cr King told Monday night's council meeting.
He wants the Albury and Wodonga councils to consider taking on freeway maintenance as a Two Cities, One Community project from Roads and Maritime Services and Regional Roads Victoria.
"We have our staff down on hands and knees with nail scissors cutting the botanical gardens yet we have a deplorable entrance," Cr King said.
Albury council chief executive Frank Zaknich said discussions had been held with the RMS and member for Albury Justin Clancy in recent months about the "standard of the maintenance".
He committed to speaking to Wodonga Council about a partnership and providing a report.
Cr King's concern followed former mayor Henk van de Ven riffing on traffic flow off the freeway at Borella Road.
"This council needs to advocate for a long-term fix for the bottleneck that I see as going to be crippling the major entrance to our city," Cr van de Ven said.
He wanted the widening of the Borella Road bridge to have been considered as part of a draft strategy for that strip and the Riverina Highway past the airport.
The city's planning and environment chief Brad Ferris said the bridge was outside the project and the RMS had given no indication it would make the span wider in the short to medium term.
Earlier, a bid by councillor John Stuchbery to rescind a motion to replace the roundabout at Thurgoona Drive and Elizabeth Drive with traffic lights failed.
Cr Stuchbery argued that roundabouts were safer and there was a "fair degree of dislike" of the traffic light decision among Thurgoona residents.
Deputy mayor Amanda Cohn and councillor Graham Docksey argued that it was a waste of time and resources to review the move with the former saying traffic lights had a 20-year life span and a roundabout 12 years.
Mr Ferris said work equating to $144,000 had been done on preparing for the lights which are expected to cost $3.5 million to install.