Victoria’s roadwork blitz: Historic, or heavy-handed?

There’s a roadwork “blitz” set to take Victoria by storm in the coming months. $964 million is set to be spent on works across the state at an average of $2.6 million per day – but it there more than meets the eye to the glut of spending?

Regardless of political lines, beliefs or loyalties and company policies, routes or histories, the one common denominator among all who use Victoria’s regional roads is that something has had to give. At its best, the overall road quality is poor. At its worst, it’s dangerous.

There have already been announcements of road upgrade and flood prevention works on three key regional Victorian freight arterials from the funding. A section of the Sunraysia Highway in the state’s north is being rebuilt from the ground up at the time of writing, $255 million has been allocated to improving the Great Ocean Road for tourist, freight and local use, and a section of Terang-Mortlake Road is being strengthened.

When the road blitz was announced Minister for Roads and Road Safety Melissa Horne said the funding committed was the largest single-year commitment in state history.

“We’re investing nearly a billion dollars to rebuild and repair the roads Victorians depend on every single day – from the highways connecting our major centres to the local roads that keep communities moving,” Horne said.

“We’ll be rebuilding, repairing and resurfacing more than 160 major roads and freeways right across the state as part of this upcoming maintenance program.

“We’re delivering work across every corner of the state, making sure the roads Victorian drivers use every day are smoother and stronger.”

Shadow Minister for Roads and Roads Safety Danny O’Brien, however, told ATN people should refrain from being caught up in the sums presented for the project, and that it still isn’t enough to get the state’s roads back on track.

“The funding the government has announced is the annual funding for road maintenance that was already revealed in the state budget six months ago,” O’Brien says.

“It is not new money, not a new program, and it is not enough.

A key line from Horne in the rhetoric surrounding this wider roadwork project has been the last Liberal National Government – which was in power between 2010 and 2014 – “cut road maintenance funding and jobs”, but the sitting Labor government has also recently cut funding from road safety and improvement efforts.

O’Brien says although there is that sum being committed to road maintenance, road safety initiatives are now being ignored.

“While not enough is being done on maintenance, the government has also slashed spending on road safety, cutting funding by $88 million in 2023/24 while there is no funding in the current year for tactile line marking or roadside safety barriers.”

The road repair budget was also slashed by over $170 million last year.

Large parts of this funding increase have been allocated to flood repair works and, with over 700 potholes currently being filled per day across the state, there is plenty of work to do, however O’Brien says the current state of Victoria’s roads has little to do with flooding.

“There is no way this funding is enough to fix our roads, especially when it includes an undisclosed amount for ‘flood recovery’ works which would only reduce that available for general maintenance,” O’Brien continues.

“The problem is Labor is focused on patching up potholes without addressing the real cause of them in the first place – the abject lack of preventative maintenance.”

Previously, a spokesperson for the Victorian government told ATN “the major weather events of the past few years have had a big impact on our roads and what were once considered once-in-a-generation flood events are becoming commonplace”.

However, according to the Bureau of Meteorology 2023’s annual rainfall in Victoria of 628mm was the 5.3 per cent below the 1961-1990 average.

2022 was at the other end of the spectrum. It was the fifth wettest year in the state on record and its annual rainfall was 32 per cent above the 1961-1990 average.

So, there is little doubting flooding could have had a severe impact on Victorian roads over the past two years, but – if that is the case – then it has taken two years to fix the damage.

It’s easy to wade into the political landscape of road work maintenance and safety funding when venturing into debates regarding roads in any state or territory in Australia. This is not unique to Victoria by any stretch of the imagination.

Regardless of who is in power, something must improve. It’s an issue so severe that battle lines have been drawn and election promises made all over the country surrounding Australia’s roads.

In the recent Queensland election former Premier Steven Miles and recently elected David Crisafulli found common ground on the issue, and both promised the push the current 50/50 state and federal funding split back to 80/20.

Crisafulli and the LNP also promised to re-establish a Bruce Highway advisory board to prioritise upgrades for the road’s most dangerous sections.

Miles and Labor committed to spending $700 million to duplicating the Bribie Island Bridge, which the LNP committed to building but did not set a budget.

In the 2023 New South Wales election the Coalition pledged $1 billion to upgrading regional roads and $1 billion to upgrading roads in Western Sydney, while committing a further $500 million to help local councils fix potholes.

In the same election Labor promised $1.1 billion to road improvements across Western Sydney and regional NSW.

It’s an issue that, in isolation, plays a key role in seeing who holds the power across Australia, and in that broad view it can be easy to forget who the issues impact the most. Those who use the roads and feel every broken piece of tarmac as it flies under their wheels.

Because while road safety is the major driver in trying to ensure the quality of the nation’s tarmac is up to scratch, the impact is being felt in the form of damage to some of Australia’s most important road vehicles.

“Heavy vehicle drivers know this more than most,” O’Brien says.

“They are on the road more than anyone and feel every hole, bump, dip and crack in the road.”

Regardless of whether you think the $964 million committed to road improvements across Victoria has come later than needed, is going to the wrong places, or is enough to fix the problem matters, but at least something is being done to pull the quality of some of the state’s poorest roads up to some kind of standard.