Chick-fil-A Traffic Map.jpg

This map shows Portage Public Safety's plan to stage motor vehicle traffic access into the new Chick-fil-A restaurant as it opens on Feb. 23, 2017, at 6202 S. Westnegde Ave., in front of Southland Mall. Traffic facilitators will in the locations with yellow boxes as well as elsewhere. The green lines indicate the plan for traffic that will park at the restaurant rather than negotiate its drive-thru lanes.

(Google Maps)

PORTAGE, MI -- The busy commercial stretch of South Westnedge Avenue, below Milham Avenue, is expected to be a busier than usual over the next few days.

Police anticipate heavier traffic as motorists try to make their way to the new Chick-fil-A restaurant, which is to open at 6 a.m. Thursday at 6202 S. Westnedge Ave., in front of Southland Mall.

Lt. John Blue

The Portage Department of Public Safety anticipates enough traffic to warrant a plan to convert the curb lane along southbound Westnedge, from Milham Avenue to the new restaurant at Plaza Drive, into an access lane to the new business.

Lt. John Blue, head of patrol operations for Portage Public Safety, said signs will be set up at Milham Avenue to tell southbound motorists that the curb lane will have a special use.

Portage Mayor Pete Strazdas said city officials' are trying to be pro-active rather than re-active. Their thinking is colored by experiences shared by Chick-fil-A officials at the opening of the popular chicken sandwich restaurants in other cities. And also by the traffic back-ups that continued for more than two weeks on busy West Main Street in Kalamazoo after a Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits restaurant opened in October of 2015.

Traffic there was often backed up for more than a quarter mile and congestion played a role in a car-school bus bang-up that occurred there during the time.

Plaza Drive is at the first traffic signal motorists encounter when they pass Milham Avenue heading south on Westnedge Avenue. It is a key access road into Southland Mall.

One or more public safety officers will work with extra personnel hired by Chick-fil-A to facilitate traffic after it turns from Westnedge into Plaza Drive.

If restaurant traffic mounts, the drive will be used solely to manage that traffic. Traffic that is northbound on Westnedge will be prohibited from turning left into Plaza Drive.

Access to Plaza Drive will be allowed only via the southbound curb lane, and that traffic will be assumed to be headed for the restaurant.

The special measures will continue on Friday, Saturday and possibly beyond that, as needed. Officials will reevaluate the situation over the coming days.

Working with the management of Southland Mall and Chick-fil-A, as well as with the city's traffic engineer and fire marshal, cars will be staged as they come into the mall area. They will be guided into lanes that will use a large section of the mall parking lot to control the flow of traffic to the restaurant.

According to Blue, that will allow officials to move traffic off Westnedge Avenue and avoid a back-up that could quickly jam up traffic turning from Milham Avenue onto Westnedge. Motorists who mistakenly end up in the curb lane that directs them into Plaza Drive will be filtered out but only after they are led through part of the staging area.

Blue worked with others for the past four weeks to draft the traffic plan in order to prevent a traffic jam in the quarter-mile stretch from Milham to Plaza Drive, as well as the section of road to the south that handles traffic to and from The Crossroads mall.

A public safety officer will be at the entrance to Plaza Drive to direct traffic and work with public safety's central dispatch. Central dispatch will work remotely to monitor images from traffic cameras along the road and watch for bottlenecks.

Blue warns that cars waiting to turn into Plaza Drive to access the restaurant could be turned away and told to continue south on Westnedge. That would occur if officers determine that a bottleneck is about to occur. Those motorists would then have to return and get back in line.

"We ask people to please be patient," Blue said