Part of Woodcock Drive to be made one way to ease Tuggeranong traffic chaos

Woodcock Drive will become one-way from Jim Pike Avenue to Clare Dennis Avenue between 7am and 11am, with two lanes of traffic heading towards the city.

Southbound traffic will have to find an alternative way into the valley, although Emergency Services Agency Commissioner Dominic Lane said traffic controllers would open the road to southbound traffic occasionally if necessary.

Temporary traffic lights were to be installed on Drakeford Drive for evening rush hour on Wednesday, operated on-site.

Mr Lane and Emergency Services Minister Joy Burch were forced to defend the traffic chaos in the Tuggeranong Valley for commuters this week after Tharwa Drive was closed between the Drakeford Drive roundabout and Mentone View while a sewage main is installed for the new South Tuggeranong fire station. The road is to reopen by January 26, with crews working 18-hour days to get through the work.

Meantime, traffic is using Woodcock Drive to access Drakeford Drive into the city.

Mr Lane said in the event of a bushfire or other disaster, the two-metre wide trench on Tharwa Drive would be filled and road plates placed over the top to allow traffic through. That work would take up to an hour, he said, explaining why the trench couldn't be filled each day for rush hour.

For medical or other emergencies, an emergency access lane had been set aside.

"Both the ambulance service and the fire and rescue service have agreed with that access lane and they've checked it out, and they are more than confident that should there be an emergency happen there today or tomorrow or the day after, they will be able to get through with no worries at all," he said.

Commuter James Ludzioweit said he left from Gordon for work at 7.15am on Wednesday, 15 minutes earlier than usual, but traffic had been even busier than the day before and the trip had taken almost an hour.

Desperate motorists were driving on the wrong side of the road on Knoke Avenue near Gordon Primary School to bypass the line of traffic, he said.

"This is only three days into the project and people are already furious," he said. "Give it another two weeks and there will be anarchy."

Another commuter said it had taken him two hours on the bus to get to work in the city.

The Emergency Services Agency and Canberra Connect received 158 emails and an unknown number of phone calls from people complaining about the standstill peak-hour traffic.

ACT Police said police would target drivers who broke the road rules.

"In stop-start traffic, it's important to continue to maintain enough distance between your car and the car in front to avoid a collision," a spokeswoman said. "A collision on this road will only make delays worse for everyone."

Ms Burch conceded she was dealing with a traffic "nightmare", but said closing Tharwa Drive and getting the work done quickly before school returned had been the right decision.

"It has caused grief, there's no doubt about that, but it would have caused disruption had we done half of Tharwa Drive and then moved to the other half. That just would have had the works and the residents of Lanyon Valley inconvenienced right through to February, possibly March. So whilst it was not a great option, it was certainly the best option."

Mr Lane acknowledged the frustration and said he, too, was concerned at the traffic problems.

He said traffic controllers would be at Clare Dennis Avenue and on Woodcock Drive on Thursday morning to occasionally allow southbound traffic through. They would also be near Tom Roberts Avenue and Box Hill Drive intersections past the Lanyon Marketplace to communicate traffic conditions to controllers at Lanyon Marketplace to improve traffic flow.

Buses were being given faster access from side roads where possible.

The Tuggeranong Community Council said the volume of traffic was unexpected.

"I was certainly convinced when they briefed me about it in mid-December that this would be the least painful option for all concerned," president Eric Traise said. "What's taken everybody by surprise is how much traffic there is for this time of year."