Map shows residents’ proposed route of Hahndorf link road to allow traffic to bypass town

Residents have come up with a proposed $56m link road to tackle congestion that locks up the popular tourist town – see where it could go.

Residents pushing for a new link road around a popular Hills tourist town have released a new map of the proposed route, as the official proposal is lodged.

The state government in October banned trucks longer than 15m from Hahndorf’s main street and sent them down nearby River Road in a bid to ease traffic congestion that’s plagued the town for years

The move caused outrage and led to residents to engage retired traffic engineer Colin Best to come up with an alternative route – while also diverting the huge numbers of cars using Hahndorf daily and open it up to tourists.

The $56m proposal – $37m for the road, and the rest for contingencies – would realign the existing dirt Fairview Rd, linking the beginning of River Rd to Echunga Rd.

The Department of Infrastructure and Transport is now conducting cost-benefit analysis, however its cost estimate is more than $100m.

River Rd resident Anne Fordham – part of the group behind the plan – said the department factored in far higher contingencies costs.

“They had a number of cost blowouts so they are now costing it a little differently due to the inflationary environment – costs have gone up,” she said.

“But I think the department itself is causing inflation because they limit who can apply and get gouged.”

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She said it was in the department’s hands now.

“How far do we have to go? We’ve come up with the idea, a technical design for it at our own cost, it almost feels like we have to go out and build the road ourselves.”

The 3km link road would include walking and bike riding trails, a horse track, a look out, an Indigenous interpretive trail, vegetation corridor and links from the main street to Hahndorf Oval.

“This current proposal is economic and low impact – we’re not taking out whole properties, we’re following existing roads, it doesn’t cut the town in two,” she said.

“We’re looking at more intelligent solutions that achieve a range of outcomes, rather than just, oh, ‘we need a rock for trucks’.”

Ms Fordam said governments needed to better package proposals to the Commonwealth and look at enhanced projects.

Last week on ABC Radio, Mr Koutsantonis said his department was “working on some solutions” for Hahndorf.

“We are doing planning on alternative routes for vehicles, including the link road, which could help move a lot of that traffic out, including commuter traffic,” he said.

Mr Best said he was “quietly confident”.

“If the powers that be recognise the impending overloading of commuter traffic through Hahndorf they will take on our option,” Mr Best said.

He said he wasn’t worried about the difference in costings, saying the department hadn’t yet done a full cost estimate.

Fairview Road, outside Hahndorf, where it becomes a dirt road. The proposal would end in Fairview being turned into a link road to allow traffic to avoid Hahndorf's main street.

Ms Fordham said a petition to remove trucks from River Road had now garnered more than 7700 signatures – 10,000 triggers a parliamentary inquiry, she said.

“There's been a flood of community interest, a tide, a wave, people are dying to sign it,” she said.

A spokesman for Mr Koutsantonis said the department had committed to audit the proposal’s cost-benefit ratio.

He said Hahndorf’s truck ban had resulted in a steep decline of heavy vehicles in the town with 130 a day beforehand and 32 in December last year – 11 of which were buses.

Monitoring had suggested trucks were opting for a variety of alternative routes, he said.

In December, 33 heavy articulated vehicles a day had used River Road, compared with 20 a day in September, before the ban.

Strathalbyn Road had 45 articulated vehicles a day in December, compared with 20 and Meadows Road had 55 compared with 40.

Hahndorf’s main street, which regularly fills with cars – both tourists and people trying to drive through.

Mr Koutsantonis said it was consistent with department advice the truck ban was unlikely to see heavy vehicle taking a single alternative route and putting significant pressure on individual roads.

“I welcome the recent comments by Mount Barker mayor David Leach about the almost universal agreement among the local community that the change to truck access on the main street has made a swift and positive difference,” he said.

Liberal Heysen MP Josh Teague called for funding for a business case for the link road proposal.

“We all know Peter Malinauskas’ decision to send heavy trucks down River Road is dangerous – it’s only a matter of time before someone is killed or seriously injured. State and federal Labor must restore funding for the Hahndorf bypass,” he said.