A proposal to widen Cobra Street to four lanes by two Dubbo Regional Council candidates proved popular with the public but the body in charge said there were no plans to change it.
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Greg Mohr and Dayne Gumley said last week if elected they would push for council and Roads and Maritime Services to work together to make it happen.
However a spokesperson for the RMS said the changes had been made for safety and had proved to be effective.
“Roads and Maritime Services changed traffic to one lane in each direction along the Mitchell Highway, known as Cobra Street in Dubbo, to improve safety for motorists and to reduce crash rates by separating through traffic from turning traffic,” the spokesperson said.
“Traffic was separated by providing turning lanes in each direction alongside travel lanes for the length of the road. This has been an effective safety treatment and there are no current plans to return the road to four lanes.”
The spokesperson said the RMS would continue to work with council to monitor congestion and safety along the road.
Mr Mohr said he would like to see four lanes running from Sheraton Road to Darling Street and felt it could be done without sacrificing parking on the sides of the road but by removing the large median strips.
Mr Gumley said Dubbo’s reputation as a city that could be crossed in 10 minutes was at risk because of congestion and something had to be done to eradicate the bottlenecks.
A poll conducted by the Daily Liberal showed 85.57 per cent of respondents thought the candidates’ idea had merit, while just 14.43 per cent were against the idea.
The proposal attracted plenty of debate on social media, with the majority of comments seemingly in favour. Some suggested it would only create problems further along, while others said it didn’t work when it was in place approximately 25 years ago.
However many more said it couldn’t happen soon enough and four lanes would be an effective way of getting traffic through faster.
Rheyce Spears said when the road was reduce to two lanes it created a bottleneck along Cobra Street that got worse every year, while Ray Kingwill said widening Cobra would just shift the bottleneck elsewhere and a ring road was needed to really reduce congestion in the city.
