A BOOSTED B-Double route is the latest piece of the puzzle to fall into place for the freight potential of the Upper Murray and Eastern Riverina.
The $3.5 million reconstruction of a notorious 2.3-kilometre section of the Jingellic Road – the Yarara Gap - was officially opened last week, meaning near misses between trucks and cars on the route will be a thing of the past.
Jingellic Road – a major link road between the Hume Highway and the Upper Murray areas – now has travel times reduced by up to 10 minutes, with B-double drivers carrying livestock and logs given new confidence in the route.
It is also the latest project to be crossed off the Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of Councils (REROC) to-do list, a schedule of infrastructure barriers said to be holding back the region’s livestock, logging and haulage industry.
REROC executive officer Julie Briggs said 38 roads throughout 12 local government areas had been identified as impediments for heavy haulage.
Ms Briggs said more than a third of those barriers had been rectified since councils developed the REROC Regional State Transport Plan in 2014.
It’s significant ... and part of a concerted group effort to keep improving roads
- Riverina Eastern Regional Organisation of Councils executive officer Julie Briggs
“It’s good to see this one finished – it’s significant to freight in this region, and part of a concerted group effort to keep improving roads,” she said.
Greater Hume mayor Heather Wilton spoke with personal experience about how dangerous the Yarara Gap stretch was before the upgrade.
“It was a very narrow, winding, steep gradient with nowhere to pull off if you got into trouble,” she said.
“It was being used by log trucks, B-doubles, stock transports and if you were caught on the wrong side of one of them it was a very scary event.
“You can actually drive on the road in top gear now.
“Previously you were lucky to get up in second gear.”
B-double transports will be the biggest beneficiaries of the upgrade.
The council estimates 30 new jobs and 100 indirect jobs will be created as a result of the better road over the Yarara Gap.
Sawn logs from the softwood forests of the Upper Murray to the Ettamogah rail hub and Norske Skog paper mill can be carted by B-doubles instead of semi-trailers and livestock trucks previously avoided the road due to safety concerns when travelling between Holbrook and Corryong.
Freight carriers will also have a viable alternative if Tumbarumba Road is shut to bushfires as happened in 2014.
Greater Hume worked with Tumbarumba Shire in building the case for $1.75 million in federal funding and another $750,000 from the NSW government.
- With the Border Mail
