Driven around the bend: Road users fed up with inaction

The top four worst roads in NSW and ACT have not changed from last year, with the Pacific Highway ranking number one for the fifth consecutive year, closely followed by Pennant Hills Road, Parramatta Road and Princes Highway.

Sydney roadways filled most places in the top 10 worst roads list, however, regional roads were not ignored by survey participants, with the Great Western Highway, Barton Highway and Wattle Tree Road at Holgate, near Gosford, also named.

NRMA president Kyle Loades said 55,000 people had taken part in the Seeing Red on Roads survey since its inception in 2011 and improvements had been made to some roadways.

“There’s been a 90 per cent decrease in injury crashes on the Princes Highway north of Jervis Bay since it was upgraded,” he said.

Mr Loades said there was work to be done for regional roadways.

“Far too many stretches of highway in regional NSW and the ACT remain dangerously, even fatally, substandard.”

Orange was the only regional centre east of the Blue Mountains to be named in the top 10 suburbs and towns with the worst roads in NSW/ACT category.

Motorists shamed the three-year-old Northern Distributor Road which bypasses the city, saying the “whole road was poorly constructed”.

Orange City Council admitted there were faults in the road, but was trying hard to make amends.

The council is considering a report calling for an extra $6.5 million to be added to the road works spending, taking the budget up to $12.5m to repair a long list of roads within the Orange City Council area.

Regional roads had not been forgotten according to Minister for Roads, Maritime and Freight Duncan Gay who said the NSW government had committed $2m to the Orange City Council to assist with repairs.

“The NSW and federal governments are investing more than $650m in the Great Western Highway – a 30 per cent increase in funding to fast track upgrades compared to Labor,” Mr Gay said.

“The overall funding commitment in roads, maritime and freight since March 2011 is $27.5 billion with $19.5b of this being invested in regional NSW.”

A $3.7b plan for regional roads includes $2b for upgrades to the Newell, Golden, New England and Great Western Highways under the Regional Road Freight Corridor program while more than $500m will be spent on adding more overtaking lanes along the Newell Highway, upgrades between Narrabri and Moree and bypasses for Parkes and Coonabarabran.

“There will be an $500m in extra funding for the Fixing Country Roads and $200m for the Bridges for the Bush programs,” Mr Gay said.

In the state’s south, the Barton Highway has outraged road users, particularly regular commuters from the Yass district to Canberra.

The poor road surface, combined with a lack of overtaking lanes and high volume of daily traffic were to blame, according to survey participants.

The community has called for the Barton Highway to be duplicated and developed as a dual carriage way, with some even calling for a bypass of Murrumbateman.

Mr Gay said the state and federal governments had funded a $300,000 Barton Highway Draft Improvement Strategy, which was on public display for comment until November 27.

ORANGE was the only regional centre to be recognised by the National Roads and Motorists’ Association (NRMA) in its annual Seeing Red on Roads campaign, placing sixth in the list.

While road works around Orange had been in the pipeline for a number of years, it was now even more important to redeem Orange’s reputation according to mayor John Davis.

“There has been plenty of talk about the (Northern Distributor Road) bypass – now is the time for action,” Cr Davis said.

Orange City Council will consider a report calling for an extra $6.5million to be added to the road works spending, adding to the current budget of $6m.

It is proposed the extra funding will be spent across two years and includes $4.93m of council funds and about $1.5m of additional federal government Roads to Recovery funding.

Orange City Council infrastructure committee chairman Glenn Taylor said sections of the bypass would be re-surfaced with hot-mix this year and be completed in the following year.

He said the repairs process would begin as early as this month.

DISGRACEFUL and dangerous is how road users have described the Barton Highway between Yass and Canberra.

It has featured in the NRMA Seeing Red on Roads campaign every year since 2013, with motorists becoming increasingly disappointed in the lack of progress.

The community has called for the Barton Highway to be duplicated and developed as a dual carriage way, with some even calling for a bypass of Murrumbateman.

Minister for Roads Duncan Gay said the state and federal governments had funded a $300,000 Barton Highway Draft Improvement Strategy, released last week, to guide its ongoing improvement.

“The draft strategy is on display for comment until Friday, November 27, and sets out the government’s 20-year plan to manage and guide the development of the road corridor to improve road safety, traffic efficiency and sustainability,” Mr Gay said.

“To date, the Australian government has fully funded a $40 million package of safety improvements on the Barton Highway.”

Yass Valley mayor Rowena Abbey said she was disappointed in the limited improvement to the Barton Highway in the past 12 months, and was less than impressed with the strategy, saying it lacked long-term solutions.

“The Barton Highway Draft Improvement Strategy, which cost tax payers $300,000 and was nearly 12 months overdue, has not provided us with a clear path forward,” she said.

“While it does include improvements to the highway in the short term, we had hoped it would give timeframes and parameters to an eventual, staged duplication.”