Abilene Needs a Safer Way to Get Its Jesus Chicken

With back-to-school traffic and the college semester descending upon Abilene again, you’ve likely run into a neat little traffic snafu in the right-turn lane at the Chic-Fil-A at Southwest Drive.

If you haven’t been subjected to the hair-raising ordeal of dinner hour traffic at the Southwest Chic-Fil-A, count yourself lucky. 

Most patrons use the far right lane directly after the Southwest Drive intersection to enter Chic-Fil-A’s drive-through, which makes sense for the store’s location at the actual intersection. When the drive-through is full, the line spills into the right lane on Southwest Drive, causing a massive traffic jam where both the left and right lanes screech to a halt. 

As someone who travels up and down Clack Street daily, I know there has to be a solution to the Chic-Fil-A Conundrum. And it may not be a problem with the local management — I feel more sympathy for the folks who work the drive-through on Southwest Drive simply because of the fast-lane fiasco just over the curb from them.

But how can the issue be addressed and make the drive-through safe again?

Us drivers can help quite a bit by slowing down. If you want to avoid meeting Jesus himself and just want the Jesus Chicken instead, slow down.

To the City of Abilene: public roadways are a responsibility no one wants and intersections like this make it hard for citizens to maneuver around town. I’m no civil engineer and I almost failed geometry, but a different layout of turn lanes at the light on Southwest Drive and Clack Street would be great.

And to franchise eyes at Chic-Fil-A: wonderful guest experiences should include the safety of your customers. Abilenians line up for Chic-Fil-A because it’s dang good Jesus Chicken, so we’d appreciate a change of location at the very least.