Completing the Newell Highway

[Braz]

If you look at the NSW government supercharger rollout it has on its plan 4 chargers for Narrabri and moree for early 2023. But, even though the first round submissions finished middle of July there's still no news as to the winners and where they will be installed? I watch this space all the time because my family lives at Moree and Warialda. It's just crazy that there's no chargers installed.

End of this year, we think.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1569110257934155777

Let's hope

 

[Jay Gatsby]

I just drove this route Melb > Brisbane. This is why I own a PHEV. I very much want a Tesla but not until there is greater range and faster charging. So I can live a life free from this government and private enterprise neglect. Like how long before this is sorted? Do we have to wait another decade for proper EV charging stations around our country? Mind you there isn't even petrol from Moree to Goondiwindi. That is 125km. It's not just lack of chargers the poor state of the road itself would affect EV efficiency. The general state of the Newell was atrocious. Huge potholes everywhere. Poor state of thresholds. Worse this leg but also around West Wyalong. The NSW gov continues to totally neglect the Newell which is actually the most direct route between our third (and soon to be largest) cities. This neglect has gone on for years. Successive state governments. Rural NSW is one of the most neglected areas in the country. NSW state government remains so Sydney centric. But also the Feds so focused on Canberra. You would need something organised like the Inland rail project to sort this out for motorists. The NSW government is incapable of solving it. It's a National disgrace. It's about time it was dual carriageway the entire way. Just MO.

 

[cafz]

It's about time it was dual carriageway the entire way. Just MO.

We're only just approaching the finish of a 30 year project to do that for the Pacific Highway between Hexham and Brisbane. It's a considerably higher traffic route, and shorter as well.

I wouldn't hold my breath for the Newell if I was you.

 

[Vostok]

We're only just approaching the finish of a 30 year project to do that for the Pacific Highway between Hexham and Brisbane. It's a considerably higher traffic route, and shorter as well.

Despite the pollies claiming in December 2020 that the M1/A1 was now “dual carriageway from Sydney to Brisbane” with the completion of the Woolgoolga to Ballina section, it actually still isn’t that. That was a lie.

The A1 is still an ordinary highway going through multiple traffic lights in Coffs Harbour, and also from Black Hill (just south of Beresfield) to Raymond Terrace. That is not a “dual carriageway” in my book.

The Coffs Harbour bypass, which has only preliminary works happening at the moment, won‘t be open until around 2027.

The M1 extension from Black Hill to Raymond Terrace will bypass a number of traffic-light controlled intersections with a new bridge over the Hunter River, to join onto the A1 just past Heatherbrae. It’s not expected to be completed until 2028.

The first section of the F3 (as it was called back then) from Hawkesbury River to Mt White commenced construction in April 1963. It was the first “freeway” standard road built in Australia outside of a capital city. If the M1 extension is completed in 2028, then it will have taken 65 years to convert the entire 1776 km road from Melbourne to Brisbane via Sydney into a proper 4+ lane divided highway with no traffic lights.

Only then can the pollies claim it is “completed”.

 

[cafz]

The A1 is still an ordinary highway going through multiple traffic lights in Coffs Harbour, and also from Black Hill (just south of Beresfield) to Raymond Terrace. That is not a “dual carriageway” in my book.

Dual carriageway means exactly that - two carriageways with physical separation for each direction of traffic. It doesn't mean no traffic lights. Tricky language? Perhaps. But not a lie.

Anyway the ongoing Coffs Harbour bypass is exactly why I said we were only "approaching" the finish.