Editor’s view: Proper commitment needed to fix deadly Bruce Hwy

An extra $259m for the Bruce Highway from the Commonwealth is welcomed, but we are demanding there be a proper commitment made to the people of Queensland who rely on this road.

An aerial view of the site of a triple fatal on the Bruce Highway in Maryborough.

With just a handful of days left in 2024, Queensland is facing its worst road toll in over 15 years with more than 300 deaths on our roads. Shockingly, 41 of those lives were lost on the Bruce Hwy.

The Courier-Mail, in conjunction with our regional mastheads, has demanded throughout 2024 via the Help Our Highway campaign for a commitment from both sides and both levels of our government to one day actually “finish” the Bruce Hwy, which has killed, maimed and traumatised Queenslanders for generations.

It’s also left millions of Queenslanders cut off from the rest of the world through flooding almost every summer.

Just last week, the stretch at the southern approach to Proserpine before Goorganga Plains went underwater, leaving two people relying on swift water rescue teams to extract them from a life-threatening drama.

As we reveal today, our state MPs are cautiously welcoming an up-tick in funding from the Commonwealth, with an extra $259m earmarked for upgrades to the Bruce.

The Courier Mail also welcomes this funding, despite representing just a drop in a vast ocean.

But as we have advocated through our campaign, we need more than funding commitments.

We are demanding there be a proper commitment made to the people of Queensland who rely on the road. This commitment must spell out what the minimum standard will be. And it must set a completion date.

This is an issue that unites Queensland.

The Bruce Hwy covers 1679km, from Brisbane to Cairns, and hosts eight of the state’s 10 top crash sites. The stretch around Rockhampton is the worst, followed by Gympie, Mackay, Townsville, Caboolture and Bowen.

While this newspaper has quite rightly documented all that is wrong with the Bruce, it has also reported on extensive highway renovation and renewal which is producing world-class results.

The joint Commonwealth/state-funded Gympie Bypass, which only recently opened, represents a massive improvement on a highway which now funnels traffic away from central Gympie.

Just over 26km of newly installed four-lane divided highway means ordinary motorists (and, perhaps more importantly, truck drivers) can now travel on a beautifully constructed road almost from the Eumundi turn-off to just north of Gympie.

Yet the cost for constructing this one short stretch of the Bruce is eye-watering – $1.162bn – more than four times the funding put on the table this week.

Premier David Crisafulli has already fulfilled an election commitment to re-establish the Bruce Highway Advisory Council, which met for the first time last week in Townsville.

Chaired by the Minister for Transport and Main Roads, Brent Mickelberg, the BHAC represents a group of stakeholders including industry experts, peak bodies and regional representatives running from the Sunshine Coast all the way up to Far North Queensland.

While a start, we don’t need more talking and blame-shifting. We need real action.

We believe finishing the Bruce Hwy is achievable, it just requires our politicians to be bold.

With a federal election just a few months away, we will continue to apply the blowtorch to both levels and both sides of government for a commitment to finally finish the Bruce Hwy.

Stick with us. We will win this.