Dunedin City Council staff will meet Portobello Rd business and landowners today to try to work out a road layout to suit their needs.
Cr Kate Wilson, chairwoman of the council's infrastructure services committee, said the focus was now on what the businesses in the area needed from the road as, at last consultation, residents were happy with the present proposal.
The council recently decided to revisit the road's new layout, created earlier this year to accommodate a new cycle lane, after the new layout, which reduced four lanes to two, caused widespread consternation to users, who found it too narrow, confusing and dangerous.
A plan to landscape, completing the road's new layout, was approved in consultation with residents of the stretch between Portsmouth Dr and Andersons Bay Rd, but had been put on hold while businesses were consulted further about their ''needs now and in the future'' in relation to the road, Cr Wilson said.
In the meantime, the council would paint more arrows on the road to indicate correct lanes and was monitoring the lane layout at the Timaru St end of the stretch.
A two-hour observation of the area last week, after some old road markings that appeared to be confusing drivers were painted over, revealed no drivers crossing the centre line.
The monitoring would be ongoing at different times of the day.
There was no set timeframe for the process from here.
Staff would cost different layout options after their meeting and take them back to the business owners, and possibly residents, depending on how much any altered designs changed the layout on the residential side of the street.
Whether a new proposal had to come back to the council's infrastructure committee for approval, or required wide consultation, depended on the extent to which it was different in cost and design to what was planned now, she said.
