More than three months of repair work costing $1.6 million has been announced for a highway providing a vital link between Far South Coast centres and the Monaro Highway and southern tablelands of NSW.
The funding is set to enable the repair of one of the two remaining landslip sites on the Snowy Mountains Highway, which crosses Brown Mountain. Seven other landslip sites have been repaired, at a cost of more than $8.6 million in joint disaster funding.
During the repairs, a 300-metre section of road will be reduced to a single lane. Also, temporary barriers and traffic lights will be in place to manage traffic flow and a reduced speed limit of 40 km/h will be implemented.
Existing traffic lights at the last landslip site to be repaired will also remain in place. Planning is underway for this site, with work expected to begin later this year.
The impact on the freight task is emerging as critical. Since the major landslips in 2022, the Snowy Mountains highway has been a repair zone. Time delays for heavy vehicles is proving to be challenging for FSC hauliers to move product between the Princes Hwy and the Monaro Hwy. With the PH route north of Bega limited to semi-trailers because of Brogo Pass and the Wagonga Inlet bridge, any savings by way of freight productivity gains are having to be deferred.
SEATS has been alerting Transport for NSW that the FSC needs a long term solution to enable the freight task to be achieved in an economical manner. SEATS has been asking for Transport for NSW to undertake a study to evaluate freight routes across the Illawarra Escarpment between Wollongong and the Victorian border to establish primary freight routes with backup.
Mountain passes built in the 1800s are not resilient enough during weather events that climate change is imposing on the eastern coast of Australia.