Charlottetown city council is looking for a fix to the rush-hour traffic jams near many popular coffee shop drive-thrus.

'We should be looking at maybe how we approve these things.'— Coun. David MacDonald

Councillors Terry Bernard and David MacDonald singled out the Tim Hortons on St. Peter's Road as a spot where accidents are waiting to happen.

"Right off the bat we're looking at the possibility of closing that entrance right next to Tim Hortons, and move the entrance back," said Bernard.

"We've asked police to look at that just to see if it's a possibility."

But that location in the old Ellis Brothers Mall parking lot is just one of several in the city where drivers wait on the street before rolling up to order their coffee.

The coffee shops are often located at busy intersections, and that's no accident — such locations often attract the most business.

MacDonald admits there's nothing illegal about the design of the drive-thrus, but said it might be time to take a second look at the city's policies.

"What I'm thinking is that we should be looking at maybe how we approve these things, and take a hard look at traffic flow and volume and location of businesses because it is a problem," he said.

While changing the policy for approving new drive-thrus could help avoid future problems, outside of the change at St. Peters Road there was little discussion of how to fix current traffic snarls.