Bottlenecks occur at the roundabout at Jonson Street and, on market days, at the roundabout at Butler Street.
The largest volume of traffic enters Byron from Ewingsdale Road.
The greatest hold-up to the traffic flow is the northbound traffic on Jonson Street at the roundabout.
If Jonson Street became one way southbound and Fletcher Street one way northbound, with Bay Street one way westbound, and if there were a connection over the railway between Jonson and Butler Streets, much of the congestion entering Byron along Ewingsdale Road would disappear.
This would be a low-cost solution for now, while in the longer term a bypass would need to be added.
I hope that Byron Shire Council will look into this low-cost solution.
Chris Abraham, Mullum Creek
Chris is correct that the greatest hold-up to the traffic flow into Byron Bay from Ewingsdale is the Johnson Street roundabout, specifically that the north bound traffic on Jonson Street has right of way over the traffic entering town.
All traffic coming into town from Shirley Street has to pause and prepare to give way to the north bound traffic on Johnson Street much of which actually turns west out of town.
A cheap and easy temporary improvement would be to place barriers west from the roundabout to make all Johnson Street traffic turn west.
This would enable the east bound traffic entering town from Shirley Street to stream through the roundabout with pausing.
Jonson Street and Lawson Street traffic going west out of town would remain as is.
Jonson Street and Lawson Street traffic wanting to go north to the beach would have to go down to the Butler Street roundabout and do a U turn.
Someone criticised this idea when I first mooted it saying that it would just relocate the problem to the Butler Street but this isn’t so.
The Butler Street roundabout is more open and has better sight lines eliminating the necessity to pause just in case.
Another problem is that pedestrians are often also the cause of hold ups. It would be great if there was obstruction to pedestrians west from the Johnson street roundabout to the battler street roundabout.