Road focus is heavy in nation-building task with a $58 million pipeline
Road building has the lion’s share of Infrastructure Australia’s (IA’s) new priority projects and initiatives, according to its latest Infrastructure Priority List 2020.
The latest edition of the Priority List reveals a project pipeline worth more than $58 billion – including six new ‘high priority projects’ and 17 ‘new priority projects’.
‘Projects’ are advanced proposals that have a fully developed business case that has been positively assessed by the independent Infrastructure Australia board. Projects remain on the Priority List until delivery or construction begins.
‘Initiatives’ are proposals that Infrastructure Australia has determined have the potential to address a nationally significant problem or opportunity. Infrastructure Australia includes them on the Priority List to indicate that further development and rigorous assessment of these proposals is a national priority.
Of the new items, Queensland is the biggest focus of freight and road-related priority projects, with five sections of the Bruce Highway, four of which are in the state’s south-east, and two of M1 Pacific Motorway added and only the Cairns Southern Access Corridor Stage 3: Edmonton to Gordonvale the Peak Downs Highway Realignment and busting the flush.
In Western Australia, the Bindoon Bypass on the Great Northern Highway is added, with the last two projects are nominated for “freight connectivity”.
However, WA’s dire regional roads gain new attention amongst ‘high priority initiatives’, with safety on its regional and rural roads highlighted.
WA also gains Broome to Kununurra Great Northern Highway improvements, Wheatbelt Secondary Freight Network improvements and Albany to Esperance South Coast Highway improvements.
Queensland is in line for road maintenance with a new National Land Transport Network upgrade plus inland state and local roads, as is the nation through a national road maintenance strategy to tackle the maintenance backlog and provide preventative maintenance.
Other state-focused high priority initiatives added include Great Western Highway improvements between Katoomba and Lithgow and Princes Highway safety and capacity between Nowra and the Victorian border.
Read the industry body responses to AI’s 2020 priority list, here
“Resilience was a key theme of our 2019 Australian Infrastructure Audit and this focus continues to be reflected in our latest edition of the Infrastructure Priority List,” IA chief executive Romilly Madew says in announcing the latest Infrastructure Priority List.
“Compounding issues of unprecedented infrastructure demand, severe drought and other environmental changes, require a focus on our resilience strategies and a consensus on where to invest now for our nation’s future prosperity.”
Headlining this year’s resilience focused planning and investment guidebook are five new High Priority National initiatives covering water, the nation’s rapidly growing waste problem, coastal inundation and road maintenance.
“What is clear from recent events is that our infrastructure networks face unprecedented risks,” IA chair Julieanne Alroe says in the list foreword.
“Climate change brings with it higher temperatures, unpredictable seasonal rainfall and water availability, more extreme winds, more extreme weather events and bushfire seasons the likes of which Australia has never seen.
“As we enter a new decade of infrastructure investment, we must plan for resilience in our infrastructure networks based on a stronger understanding of these risks.
“Our planning and investment decisions need to be proactive in addressing future risk. Australia’s emissions are among the highest in the world in per capita terms and our infrastructure accounts for more than half of the national total.
“Making our infrastructure more sustainable will be critical to protecting the quality of life of Australians.
“The Priority List supports proactive planning for emerging risks, such as the risk of coastal inundation, which was this year identified as a High Priority Initiative in response to the issue of rising sea levels over the next 15 years.”
The Infrastructure Priority List 2020 can be found here.
The Australian Infrastructure Audit 2019 can be found here.