‘Beyond pathetic’: Shut up and fix QLD’s lethal goat track

OPINION: Can someone please explain how QLD’s four lane highway has only made it 170km north of Brisbane in 20 years?

It is unfathomable that a two-lane solution for the dangerous Bruce Highway stretch at Tiaro is still being considered, instead of a four-lane answer.

IT TURNS out a proposed two-lane fix to Tiaro's dangerous Bruce Highway stretch has become a battleground, with politicians taking pot shots and questioning their "integrity" as they argue over the solution.

I'd like to suggest a solution I expect the public would get behind: they shut the hell up, stop pointing fingers, and fix the road to the standard residents deserved more than a decade ago?

I lived in Hervey Bay from 1994-2002.

The consensus in the town (and its surrounds) back then was the stretch of the highway heading south was nothing but a lethal goat track.

The highway at Tiaro has been the site of several fatal crashes.

How is it, then, that 20 years later we're still arguing over a two-lane solution as the answer instead of a dual carriageway?

It's like they've aped their own twisted interpretation of Orwell: "four lanes good, two lanes better".

I've been a regular traveller of New South Wales' Pacific Highway in that same time.

Once the section north of Grafton is opened the vast, vast majority of this 800km stretch between Tweed and Sydney will be dual carriageway.

Paramedics work at the scene of a crash near Tiaro in 2006. PicJohnWilson

The only exception?

The Coffs Harbour bottleneck - which incidentally was the other bypass in the running when Gympie's was finally approved in 2018.

RELATED

* Deputy PM backs bypass, stands by rebel MP

* 'No integrity': Tiaro bypass war turns ugly

Perhaps a politician - anyone, I don't care who - would like to explain how Queensland's four lane highway has only made it 170km north of Brisbane in this same time?

Does the office map only go that far? Are Gympie and all points north marked "here there be monsters"?

Traffic banks up at a fatal crash at Tiaro in 2011. Pic John Wilson

Point the finger at whichever party you want.

State Labor or Federal LNP both have held power for the bulk of the past 20 years in their fields, and both presided over the grand nothing that has been delivered.

Of course they like to say they're keeping the state moving.

Except, of course, every time traffic comes to a screeching halt at Tiaro because of another serious accident.

Which is a pretty apt description of the political non-plan to fix the highway: just another damned car crash.

Originally published as