Bruce Hwy issues at Gympie put entire Qld highway in doubt

OPINION: Surely (DTMR) would know by now what the underlying pavement and the subsurface are like...

Gympie MP Tony Perrett wonders if any of the Bruce Highway from Brisbane to Cairns is safe from the plague of potholes in the Gympie upgrade reportedly unforseeable and caused by the original Bruce Highway surface

Article from Member for Gymipe Tony Perrett following the Main Roads’ statement that issues with the pavement on Gympie’s new Bruce Highway upgrades at Chatsworth - a project that cost more than $17.5 million - have been caused by the original underlying Bruce Highway surface.

HOW can they not know the condition of the underlying pavement?

It’s nonsense to say that.

They weren’t forging a path over the Blue Mountains in the 1800s.

REVEALED: The unforseeable cause of $17 million Bruce Highway fail

This would be one of the most documented roads in Queensland, it’s in their records.

It should be in Departmental archives going back 50 years.

Woman taken to Gympie Hospital with serious injuries after crash near plagued stretch of highway

The file would be metres high outlining details on countless jobs, products that were used, and weaknesses in the road substructure.

Surely, they’d know by now what the underlying pavement and the subsurface are like, let alone the stresses the road goes under.

Federal MP Wide Bay and former policeman Llew O'Brien, who suffers from PTSD from years of being a First Responder to road crash fatalities along notorious stretches of the Old Bruce Highway. Photo Lachie Millard

If not, there can be no guarantee for any stretch of the Bruce Highway from Brisbane to Cairns.

This would have to be one of the most dug up, patched, and re-patched stretches of the Bruce Highway.

If you tune in to the truckies Channel 40 you’d know this stretch is notorious for the mishmash of road repairs.

It’s been a patchwork of repairs and disrepair for years.

The Transport Minister often claims that works can’t start on other local state road projects because they are ‘doing detailed design works’ and that ‘rigorous recruitment processes’ are being undertaken.

A $17 million project to upgrade the Bruce Highway and 8 intersections on the northern side of Gympie has come under fire as the new pavement continues to fail.

Only three weeks ago he told the Gympie Times that for the last nine months they had undertaken a “rigorous three-stage procurement process” to engage suitable contractors for the final 26km of the Cooroy to Curra Bruce Highway upgrade.

‘Detailed design’ and ‘rigorous processes’ clearly means something very different to the drivers using that road than the Minister.

They are furious that it will have to be corrected yet again.

Now taxpayers will have to cough up again to have it repaired after six months on a $17 million job.

Originally published as