Commute times during peak hour are expected to improve when $1.5 million worth of upgrades are completed around one of the city's major roundabouts.
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Traffic lights on the eastbound side of the railway station roundabout and traffic queue detectors on the westbound approach will be installed when work begins in April.
The turning lane on Cessnock Road will also receive a 100 metre extension.
The queue detectors will trigger the traffic lights during morning and afternoon peak hour.
That will help move westbound traffic through the roundabout more quickly, Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter Scot MacDonald said.
The roundabout will operate normally outside of peak hours.
The traffic lights are expected to better manage traffic in the afternoon peak by providing more frequent gaps between vehicles, to allow westbound traffic to travel through the roundabout,
- Mr MacDonald said.
The announcement comes after the Mercury ran a three-page spread about the city's traffic woes on Wednesday.
Mercury reporters drove into the city through all the major hot spots to experience it firsthand and the westbound congestion at the railway station roundabout was by far the worst.
It took our photographer 20 minutes to move from the United Service Station to the roundabout.
Read more: Watch the other traffic hot spots here
The congestion woes were supposed to be solved when the one-way westbound flyover opened in 2016.
Since then motorists have been calling for more improvements, including an eastbound flyover.
The work is included in the RMS 2018-19 budget and will go ahead if Labor wins the March state election.
Information flyers are being dropped into letter boxes across the city this week.
Liberal candidate for Maitland and Maitland councillor Sally Halliday said residents had raised the congestion issues with her.
She said the work on Cessnock Road would also improve traffic flow.
This will improve traffic flow and reduce the queue length on Cessnock Road in the morning peak, by providing additional lane capacity for traffic travelling through the roundabout to Church Street,
- she said.