he Dinmore to Helidon Spa section of the Warrego Highway falls below modern safety standards, with a high average fatal crash rate of between three and 10 times that of a contemporary motorway standard. The Fatal and Serious injury rate per million vehicle kilometers travelled is between 2 to 5 times higher than comparable road links in SEQ.
Additionally, the highway continues to experience low flood resilience and was closed for over 130 hours in 2022.
The Warrego Highway is Queensland’s principal east–west freight route moving over $19 billion in freight annually. The section between Dinmore and Helidon Spa is the gateway to western Queensland and connects Darwin and Melbourne to the Port of Brisbane.
Strong freight growth to the Port of Brisbane, together with population growth, particularly around Toowoomba, Galton and Ipswich, the latter of which has the highest population growth rate in Queensland, will place greater pressure capacity of the highway particularly at intersections.
Closures from flooding, combined with road crashes, are significantly affecting freight efficiency and feasible alternative routes are not available.
The proposal involves upgrading the Dinmore to Helidon Spa section of the Warrego Highway to improve road safety, capacity and flood resilience.
The options for investment in flood resilience and capacity upgrades and safety include:
- forgiving roadsides design
- new interchanges to replace high volume at grade intersections,
- upgrades to existing interchange ramps which are queueing on the highway, and
- service roads to move local trips to local roads.
Proponent to identify and analyse potential investment options (Stage 2 of Infrastructure Australia’s Assessment Framework).