Almost 500 kilometres of Victoria’s public roads are in such poor condition that they require temporary speed limit reductions or other safety measures, transport officials have revealed.
Amid accusations the state government has underspent on maintenance, the Department of Transport and Planning was grilled on the state of the roads at the public accounts and estimates committee on Wednesday.
Almost 500 kilometres of Victoria’s road network is “under mitigation”.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Department of Transport and Planning deputy secretary William Tieppo told the committee that the department had tracked the condition of the state’s road network.
As of August, 487 kilometres of roads were “under mitigation” and had speed limit reductions or other measures in place pending work to fill potholes or fix cracking and other damage, he said.
The floods that hit the state in late 2022 caused such significant damage to roads in regional Victoria that they needed rebuilding, stretching the state’s road maintenance resources.
During the hearing, opposition roads spokesman Danny O’Brien asked department officials whether the state had underinvested in road maintenance
He pointed to a “dramatic reduction” in work undertaken last financial year.
In 2023-24, the state resurfaced or rehabilitated 422,000 square metres of regional roads – a huge drop from the 9 million square metres in the previous financial year, department annual reports show. Even that was well short of its target of 12 million square metres.
Resurfacing and rehabilitation work in Melbourne fell from 995,000 square metres to 587,000 square metres over the same period.
However, department secretary Paul Younis said the reduction was a result of “significant changes” that it had made to how it managed the road network, including more focus on road strengthening works.
“We’re doing less resurfacing – that is putting a seal over the top of the road – [and] we’re doing significantly more strengthening of the road,” Younis said.
“When you do that … there’s less square metres that [are] covered, but there is a greater outcome in relation to the pavement strength.”
Younis said that new approach was “the most efficient way that makes sure that we’re managing the lifecycle of the road”.
O’Brien questioned the bulging balance of the Better Roads Victoria Trust, which receives revenue from speed cameras and is intended to fund road upkeep.
Payments from the trust fell by $76 million last year, while its cash balance was $99.6 million at the end of June, compared with an average of $13.5 million over the previous four years.
“Why wouldn’t that have been allocated to actually fixing the roads?” O’Brien asked.
Younis said road maintenance funding came from multiple sources, and the trust’s balance at the end of the financial year did not reflect how much was being spent.
“The program of fixing the roads is not based purely on the first of July,” he said. “We have programs that run across that, and the balance at that particular date doesn’t reflect the effort of the program.”
Last month, the Allan government announced a $964 million road repair program to try to fill potholes, resurface rough sections of road and carry out other maintenance.
Younis said there were 15 contracts being procured for resealing works.
Get the day’s breaking news, entertainment ideas and a long read to enjoy. Sign up to receive our Evening Edition newsletter.