The future of the road that grey nomads love to hate … Queensland’s Bruce Highway … is once again the subject of intense debate.
Australia’s shadow infrastructure and transport minister has claimed a six-lane Bruce Highway from the Sunshine Coast to Caboolture is still a real possibility.
The stretch of road, which carries about 60,000 vehicles per day, will apparently be firmly on the agenda when negotiations for a new Commonwealth Funding Agreement get under way in the coming months.
The current Commonwealth-State Funding Agreement expires on June 30, 2014.
Warren Truss told the Sunshine Coast Daily that the highway stretch towards Brisbane had “unusual characteristics” with heavy traffic volumes during weekends and public holidays which should be taken into consideration when the State Government prioritised projects.
“Six lanes to Caboolture is something that needs to be done,” he said. “But I’d like to see four lanes at least all the way up to Cairns.”
The State Government takes into consideration traffic counts, accident records and flooding when prioritising projects.
A spokeswoman for State Transport Minister Scott Emerson told the Sunshine Coast Daily that the upgrade of the highway to Caboolture was a worthy project but “there are other stretches of this national highway that require urgent attention”.
Would you like to see this section of the Bruce become a six-lane highway? Do you think it will ever happen? Comment below.
Six lanes…………..Total waste of money. Police the highway is the answer. I have seen people get on the highway from Brisbane heading South to the Gold Coast and they are straight to the outside lane and there they sit until it’s time to get off the highway. Sometimes it’s a guessing game to see which lane they will pick to stay in.
Same on all multi lane roads.
The police can book as many as they like for speeding it won’t address the driving habits unless there is a visible and constant Police presence on the major highways all over Australia.
people need to realise if they hog the outer lanes ,however many lanes there are it only slows traffic and causes tempers to flare and endangers both themselves and other road users. It actually speeds up traffic if people stay left and drive at constant speeds and don’t hold up other traffic.
Six lanes and 4 to cairns? sure it will happen and would be a good thing too. Will probably take about the same time it is taking to duplicate the pacific hwy in nsw. 53 years and counting so far. so don’t hold your breath, promises are easy to give shame they cant be held to them.
For 20 years I’ve lived in Cairns and in that time flood mitigation has been promised to the tune of billions. If the budgets where anything to go by the roads to Cairns should be the best in Australia. I bet the same can be said for the rest of Australia. Pity hard labour (prison reform) and work for the dole arn’t the flavour of the year
I have just driven from Brisbane to Melbourne via Pacific H’way Sydney and the Hume highway.
It was a pleasure to travel on the dual highway from Sydney to Melbourne.
If only, If only we had the same road from say Brunswick Heads to around Taree. Now let’s look at Queensland. The Bruce H’way is more an outback track. One day, I say one we may have a dual carriage way to Cairns, but I will not be here to us it.
Where does all our Rego fee goes. In Australia last year we sold just short of one million new vehicles at what ??? an average rego of say $700 is a nice pot of gold.
Lots of $$$ wasted on lolly stick holders, when a traffic light can do the same thing. But then these people are employed.
My thoughts go out to the country people re their roads.
John