URGENT action has been called on for a section of Ploughmans Lane, with completion of the Southern Feeder Road still expected to take a number of years.
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Councillor Tony Mileto used Orange City Council's road forum on Tuesday night to raise the section between Cargo Road and the Escort Way, which will form a future stage of the ring road.
He noted the road was not listed for upgrade to a standard where people could drive "without getting whiplash".
"It's a goat track to be quite honest," he said.
Works manager Wayne Gailey said a $4 million roundabout at the Escort Way was forecast in next year's budget, which would connect Ploughmans Lane to the Northern Distributor Road, but still needed government funding to proceed.
"As part of that, we have to cut through the land on the corner of Ploughmans and the NDR and that takes out a fair bit, I think it's 400 metres down Ploughmans Lane," he said.
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Councillor Jason Hamling, who also raised the issue at the council meeting earlier this month, said waiting on funding was a lottery.
"We got told in council it was stage nine of the Southern Feeder Road so in my opinion, we should be bringing stage nine to stage three and fixing the roads that are heavily utilised," he said.
Staff acknowledged the road was rated at condition nine, which was considered extremely poor and in immediate need of renewal, but also voiced a preference for fixing the road in conjunction with the other work and no timeframe had been set.
A resident asked why the Forest Road upgrade was not dual carriageway to cater for more traffic.
She also asked why a roundabout could not have been built at the Southern Feeder Road intersection Sir Jack Brabham Park, saying the traffic travelling in the east-west direction was not heavy enough to justify traffic lights.
Technical services director Ian Greenham said there was future provision for widening on Forest Road.
"The issue is there are no other sections that are four lanes approaching it and we've also got the [NDR], which for quite some sections is only one lane in each direction and carries quite considerably more traffic in peak times," he said.
Mr Gailey said the traffic lights were required due to the anticipated future demand on the Southern Feeder Road once it connected to the Mitchell Highway, including traffic accessing the hospital precinct.
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