River Street Lane Duplication (eastbound Kerr Street to Grant Street)

Council is progressively upgrading River Street and Kerr Street to dual lanes to accommodate increasing traffic volumes and to cater for future traffic needs.

The largest concentration of traffic flows is at the River Street/Kerr Street intersection.

At this intersection, the River Street eastbound flow through Kerr Street is currently inhibited by an inner lane that is shared with a filtered right turn movement. The outer eastbound lane is fed into a short (60 m) terminating lane in River Street (east) then forced into a merge with the inner lane.

Aerial photo of existing configuration:

Council is proposing to extend the outer eastbound lane from the River Street/Kerr Street intersection through to Grant Street.

To accommodate this road duplication Council is proposing to convert the current angle parking on the north side of River Street (from Kerr Street to Grant Street), to a narrower parallel parking format. The proposed lane duplication and parking changes are shown on the plan below.

Proposed lane duplication on River Street:

The lane duplication and conversion from angle to parallel parking will result in the loss of 10 carparking spaces (from around 31 to 21 spaces).

Parking occupancy data for this section of River Street has been collected to understand the impact of this proposed change.

Table 1 – Parking Occupancy Extract from Ballina CBD Parking Study

Table 2 – Parking Occupancy, Data Collected 2022

This parking occupancy data indicates that the reduction in carparking spaces will have minimal impact on parking availability for businesses along this section of River Street as there is usually fewer than 21 vehicles parked in this section of the street.

Council is seeking feedback from business owners, motorists and residents on this proposal.

Following public exhibition Council will consider community feedback and report the findings to a future Council Meeting.

Submissions close Friday 17 November 2023.