A NEW Wagga City Council plan to deal with the city's ongoing traffic problems will emerge in the coming months despite other councils advising against the move.
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Wagga councillors unanimously agreed at Monday night's meeting to form a separate traffic committee for an advisory group already in place.
It comes at the request of Councillor Dan Hayes who asked council staff in January last year to find alternative options to address the city's traffic management issues.
Cr Hayes, who is a councillor representative on the current Local Traffic Committee, said at the heart of the existing group was an expert advisory panel with the skills and knowledge to achieve results.
But the problem lies in the fact it had been designed to be reactive to requests raised by the public, he said.
Cr Hayes said there needed to be a separate group that could proactively and holistically fix the city's traffic problems.
He said the original committee did not have the authority to take this approach.
"[The current committee] cannot go ... we have noticed a history of car crashes at [these locations] so let's look at what we can do differently in those areas," he said.
The councillors' decision was made against the advice of "a significant number" of NSW councils that "strongly advised" not to form an additional committee, which was outlined in a council officer's report on Monday night.
Despite this feedback, Cr Hayes said the council should give it a try.
"From my experience, there has been a missing piece [in the Local Traffic Committee] and what works in one community, might not work in another," he said.
"If after a trial period it is not working it can always be changed, revamped and improved. It is not locked in forever."
In other news:
In the report, the council's technical and strategy manager said a separate committee could help handle the predicted influx of traffic matters, and planning and development proposals, linked to Wagga's future growth.
"It is apparent that the LTC may not have sufficient resources to assess matters efficiently and within the required time frames," he said.
"There is no committee established to particularly assess and recommend on traffic impacts arising from developmental growth or change in land use."