While one of Wagga’s greatest appeals is its relative ease to navigate by car, there are still traffic “growing pains” that need to be urgently addressed.

They include, but are not exclusive to, the Glenfield Road overpass, the Bunnings roundabouts, the Gobba Bridge, CBD parking and a truck bypass.

Over the past 12 months, each time The Daily Advertiser has asked questions of council about these issues it has received the same stock response: wait for the Integrated Transport Strategy (ITS).

The document, which is nine months’ overdue and cost ratepayers $240,000, will be formally unveiled on February 27.

For weeks, council insiders have been expressing growing unease about the whispers they were hearing about the ITS.

This week, some were given a taste-test of the main points of the landmark study, and it confirmed their worst fears.

Among the study’s mystifying recommendations was not to pursue a duplication of the Gobba Bridge.

Despite the fact the suburb of Estella will grow to become Wagga’s largest, the consultants claimed finding the $600 million to build a new bridge would be an exercise in futility.

The grossly inflated figure aside, this is a defeatist attitude that ignores the reality of our city’s northern growth corridor.

Compounding the absurdity is a band-aid solution to block vehicles turning left into Travers Street off the bridge.

More alarming is the report’s seemingly central contention that our parking issue could be solved by, wait for it, creating less parking spots.

The report is expected to recommend dropping the provision for mandated parking in new developments, claiming less parking will encourage residents to cycle, walk or use public transport more.

Such logic might resonate in inner-city Sydney or Melbourne, but it certainly won’t help parking congestion in Wagga.

This report has cost ratepayers a bomb and delayed essential work on traffic snarls across the city.

During debate over traffic congestion last year, Cr Paul Funnell, so often a voice of common sense in the chamber, famously said many of these issues could be better solved between a few mates in five minutes on the back of a beer coaster. He might be onto something.