The Pacific HWY/MWY

[Feathers]

Originally Posted by chief

I find that if you drive heading south from Sydney, it is a much better drive. The scenery, roads and stops on the side of the road. Head north and it is a bit of a joke. Always prefer driving south.

Originally Posted by BlueBAXR8

I recently drove down to Bega and have to agree the south coast roads are a great drive. Regular o/taking lanes, sensible speed limits and lovely countryside I saw only 2 coppers in the space of a week. The drive down and back was the highlight of an otherwise disasterous holiday.
At Easter we are going up Nambucca and to be honest Im not really looking forward to it, last time we went up it was like guardrail white line-guardrail white line and boring as buggery, not to mention coppers and cameras etc...its the same going down to Canberra
Such a shame you cant get up north via the south coast road :eclipsee_

I love the south coast, and especially the drive down there. Was always my only choice for a holiday destination.

[Keepleft]

The New England Highway is the National Route and primarily a Commonwealth funding responsibility.

The Pacific Highway is purely a NSW 'state' road. In upgrading efforts to date, both the Commonwealth and NSW goverments have committed funds owing its national importance to the economy. Because the upgrading has proven far more expensive than the 1.2 billion originally estimated, a toll is proposed to finalise the remainder of the length by speeding up the works. Ultimate cost could fall between 5 - 6 billion.

The newly opened dual carriageway lengths AND full freeway lengths are to have point to point speed cameras installed. (See ALP north coast women MP's as key proponents, as reported in hansard). I consider this a basis for NOT continuing the upgrade seeing as these *newly opened* roads are obviously soooo dangerous.

NSW is quite frankly in a dire financial mess, our infrustructure is failing and it is quite clear we don't know how to build 'high-standard' freeway quality roads anymore. How else does one explain the Australian idiot who globally designed the rest area exit lanes to be 50 metres, and for there to be a 'slip' lane at rejoin/departure?? NFI. I undertook action to change that 'global' specification, basically this change affected the whole entire route plans.

Hell, we can't even stick to our own design guidelines, the Buladelah-Cooloolongook section cost $197 million for 22 kilometres of road. Its unpaved median is typically 8.0 metres undivided. Even our poor, third world road design guidelines effectively mandate median barrier when this is 10 metres or less on such speed zones! Little wonder the crossovers, AND another exaple of poor stanadrds, - the people who insist on doing U-Turns at 'emergency access bays' which are NOT used overseas where speeds are higher, here in particular, a reason why the speed limit will not go higher than 110km/h, but may even reduce.

The maximum toll looks set to be $20 - 23, but I'd reckon on $28 - 32 at completion. 'Locals' won't pay.