Petrolia Mayor John McCharles says there aren’t a lot of transports in downtown Petrolia right now and he’d like to keep it that way.

Petrolia council has voiced concern for a number of years about the number of transports traveling through the community’s downtown on Petrolia Line which is a county road. It has been asking the county to reroute traffic and staff committed to holding public meetings and coming up with a solution. But so far the meetings have not been held and McCharles is concerned.

“There’s not a lot of truck traffic right now,” he jokes pointing out the main street of the community will be under construction for two years and drivers are avoiding it.

But the mayor says this is the perfect time to come up with a permanent solution.

“I thought maybe the issue fell off the table,” McCharles said during a recent committee meeting of Lambton County councillors.

Jim Kutyba, general manager of infrastructure and planning, says it hasn’t meetings are being arranged to discuss how and when the public meetings should take place.

Roseanne Orcutt is one of the people behind the push to ban trucks on Petrolia Line. She says a meeting was held Wednesday between county officials, the Volunteer Business Group representative, citizen David Hext and herself. “We’re going to plan some more about how this is going to happen.

“It seems like this is an opportune time to do it, when the trucks aren’t able to come through.”