Through two weeks of the Fall Foliage Festival, Jim Thorpe Borough officials are pleased with the weekend traffic flow downtown.

Police Chief Joe Schatz told council during Thursday night's meeting that several things have contributed to that, including some less than ideal weather, but also the availability of the parking lot at Mauch Chunk Lake and the new Route 903 bridge."Being able to bus people in from the lake has helped a great deal and the turning lanes on the new bridge have really kept things from backing up."Traffic flow was again tinkered with for this year's festival, which still runs Saturday and Sunday.Cars have been prohibited from turning left from Route 209 into the county parking lot. Instead, they are required to go around Hazard Square and come in to the lot making a right turn."We're always looking at ways we can keep from having the tie-ups and thankfully there haven't been any major issues this year," Schatz added.One additional measure that could help in the future is the bagging of parking meters owned by the county along Route 209 that face the Jim Thorpe Train Station.Council voted Thursday to send Carbon commissioners a letter asking them to bag those meters at the discretion of the police department following a complaint from resident Bill Malatak.Mayor Michael Sofranko said the borough received $4,000 from the county to help offset the cost of police coverage during the festival.The contribution, which comes from the hotel tax fund, is down from $5,000 last year."We're spending a total of $4,061.35 on the police coverage for the festival," Sofranko said.