Hundreds of people were late for work and school in Oban this morning stuck in traffic tailbacks due to an “inefficient” temporary lights system.
Rush hour was chaos as vehicles backed up Soroba Road as far as the hospital roundabout and continued towards the large housing areas of Soroba and Glenshellach.
Lights at a busy junction failed during the weekend. And the temporary replacement set installed in their place slowed everything down.
Soroba Road is well-known as a traffic bottleneck at the best of times.
The town’s Green party member, Councillor Luna Martin, was one of many caught in this morning’s traffic.
She described it as: “Absolute mayhem in town. Hundreds of people late to work and school because of an inefficient and delayed temporary traffic light ‘solution.’
“The emissions coming from these cars in standstill will be significant, not to mention they are queued in front of the school and nursery. Children can’t even look left and right at the crossing due to the queues.
‘The traffic congestion in Oban cannot be allowed to continue’
“We need to implement greener and more efficient solutions, the traffic congestion in Oban cannot be allowed to continue if we want to encourage more people to visit, work and live here.”
Councillor Martin suggested walking where possible, better use of public transport and cycling. And called for a transport review of the town.
The temporary three-way traffic lights system was installed at the Soroba Road junction for Tesco and Aldi. This happened after the regular lights failed at the weekend.
Oban’s regular traffic lights failed over the weekend
Councillor Martin reported the issue to Argyll and Bute Council’s roads department.
Updating the public she wrote online: “Unfortunately the regular traffic lights failed over the weekend and so a temporary system was implemented, these don’t work as well as the regular lights.
“I have received information from the roads department that a contractor is en-route now to come and have a look at the lights and hopefully resolve the issue.”
What’s going on with Oban’s roads?
Later this week, we’ll take a closer look at Oban’s traffic congestion problems.
We take an in-depth look at the pinch points in the town centre and consider possible solutions.
With hundreds of new houses completed at Dunbeg and more to come, will things get worse? And if they do, what can be done?
Several local people including taxi drivers, community councillors and the West Coast Motors bus service manager also have their say.
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