Between those who love and those who hate the Lincoln Avenue road diet is a faction of people who say more time is needed to make a few tweaks that could improve the traffic flow.

Eight of them belonged to the nine-member Road Diet Working Group, which automatically dissolved once the Willow Glen Business Association voted in favor of ending the experiment that converted Lincoln from four lanes to a three, with one lane in each direction and a middle lane for turning. They signed off on a letter last week that asks the city’s Department of Transportation and District 6 Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio to consider allowing “more time do this test right.”

Along with its request, the group offered up seven fixes it believes would improve the flow of traffic on the busy business district thoroughfare.

Among them is painting “Keep Clear” at two locations on the road, adding signs that prohibit right turns onto three residential side streets during peak commute hours, reconfiguring the driveway near the Garden Theater and retiming the light at Lincoln Avenue and Willow Street to ease traffic flow.

The Road Diet Working Group, composed of volunteer residents and Willow Glen business representatives, was formed late in 2014 to serve as a “conduit” between transportation officials and the community. Though the group’s service ended at the end of the trial period, its members wanted to share their thoughts.

“These ideas came out in different discussions,” said Tom Trudell, a working group member and former Willow Glen Business Association board member who resigned after the business association’s vote because it conflicted with the working group’s view.

“The phasing of the light at Willow is one of the biggest” fix options, he said. “We basically ran out of time; that’s the thrust of the letter.”

Jim Ortbal, interim director of the department of transportation, said there are a number of ideas that “warrant looking into.”

“I think they have some good ideas,” he said, adding that the department won’t make any changes without direction from the city council.

At the Willow Glen Business Association’s June 23 meeting, Ortbal had offered to try retiming the lights at Willow Street and give the association until July to vote.

But the association’s board declined to wait another month, citing major and immediate impacts on business.

A number of business owners, including Gary Ravai of Goosetown Lounge, have said that customers are frustrated by the change and avoiding Lincoln Avenue.

During a typical happy hour, Ravai said, he used to get about 20 patrons on a weekday from 4 to 6 p.m. Now the lounge may see five or six come in during that time.

Others also have seen a decline in the lunch rush, according to a survey by the business association.

When the 90-day Lincoln Avenue lane reduction trial was presented to the public in February, city transportation officials indicated they wouldn’t recommend keeping the two-lane configuration unless there was uniform support from both the Willow Glen Business Association and the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association.

Because the business group isn’t on board, Ortbal and his department will keep its promise by not making any recommendations to the city council should it take up the issue.

The department also won’t implement any suggested fixes, such as retiming the light, unless directed to by the city council and Mayor Sam Liccardo. However, transportation officials have been talking with property owners about a possible driveway reconfiguration at the Garden Theater to ease congestion at the lot’s entry and exit points.

Former mayor Chuck Reed’s 2014-15 budget allocated $25,000 for safety and traffic calming measures along Lincoln Avenue. The 2015-16 budget allocates an additional $250,000 for District 6 traffic calming and traffic signal improvements, Ortbal said.

The letter from Trudell and the other seven former Road Diet Working Group members asks for an extended, unspecified time to continue testing the road diet.

“It’s a middle ground. Let’s try something,” Trudell said.

Current lane striping on Lincoln Avenue likely will remain at least until already scheduled pavement maintenance is completed this fall.