Princes Highway


The Princes Highway is a major road in Australia, extending from Sydney to Adelaide via the coast through the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. It has a length of or via the former alignments of the highway, although these routes are slower and connections to the bypassed sections of the original route are poor in many cases.
The highway follows the coastline for most of its length, and thus takes quite an indirect and lengthy route. For example, it is from Sydney to Melbourne on Highway 1 as opposed to on the more direct Hume Highway, and from Melbourne to Adelaide compared to on the Western and Dukes Highways. Because of the rural nature and lower traffic volumes over much of its length, the Princes Highway is a more scenic and leisurely route than the main highways between these major cities.

Route allocation

Sections of the Princes Highway have different route allocations. These allocations, from its northern terminus in Sydney to its western terminus in Glen Osmond, are:

Former routes

In 2013, New South Wales introduced a new alphanumeric route numbering system, replacing the former system of national and state routes. The Princes Highway formerly entered Wollongong as State Route 60 down the Bulli Pass and ran a largely separate route from and through to the southern suburbs from the parallel Princes Motorway, the latter of which bears the 'M1' route designation. The gazetted route of the Princes Highway differs from the route of State Route 60. The gazetted route was designated State Route 60 for its length, but deviated from the road that is signposted as the Princes Highway between and .

History

The section of the Princes Highway between West Helensburgh and Bulli Tops the original coastal route between Sydney and Wollongong, first used in 1843. From Bulli Tops this route continued south along today's Mount Ousley Road as far south as Mount Keira Road, and then followed Mount Keira Road around the west of Mount Keira. This route replaced the inland route from Sydney via to Bulli Tops.
The Princes Highway as a named route came into being when pre-existing roads were renamed ‘Prince's Highway’ after the visit to Australia in 1920 of the Prince of Wales.
The original submissions in January 1920 were in order for the Prince to have the opportunity during his visit to make the trip from Melbourne to Sydney overland along the route. Different routes were considered, including the inland route via. This idea never came to fruition, due partly to the limited amount of time and the cost to construct the road to a suitable standard for him to undertake the trip. The Prince did, however, give his permission for the naming.
The highway had opening ceremonies in both New South Wales and Victoria during 1920. The first section of road from Melbourne was opened on 10 August in Warragul. The road from Sydney was opened on 19 October in Bulli, by the NSW Minister for Local Government, Thomas Mutch.
The approval was given by the Victorian executive to extend the highway west from Melbourne through Geelong, Camperdown, Warrnambool and Portland to the South Australian border in January 1922. The roads were renamed by the South Australian government from Adelaide east to the South Australian border in February 1922. At that time, the route from Adelaide was via Aldgate, Mylor, Macclesfield, Strathalbyn, Langhorne Creek, crossing the Murray River at Wellington, then continuing along the present towns of Meningie, Kingston SE, Robe, Beachport, Millicent and Gambier Town.
By 1928, the route went through Mount Barker and Wistow to Langhorne Creek. By 1935, the Princes Highway passed through Nairne and Kanmantoo, Murray Bridge and Tailem Bend. This road was superseded by the South Eastern Freeway, Swanport Bridge and finally the South Eastern Freeway was extended from Crafers to Glen Osmond. The section between Kingston SE and Millicent has also been replaced by a more direct inland route. The coastal route through Robe and Beachport is now route B101, the Southern Ports Highway.
In 1942, as part of wartime defence measures, a road was built from Mount Keira Road to. This route forms part of Mount Ousley Road.
In August 2011, the stretch of the highway in South Australia between Port Wakefield and Port Augusta was renamed Augusta Highway as part of a process to standardise the rural property addressing system across the state.

Timeline of significant upgrades and bypasses

Projects

Route

New South Wales

The Princes Highway starts at the junction of and City Road in the Sydney suburb of Chippendale. City Road in fact forms the first section of the highway, and becomes King Street, Newtown, also part of the Princes Highway. Where King Street ends at Sydney Park Road, the Princes Highway continues in its own right.
The highway in this section is constructed as a six-lane divided carriageway, other than along King Street and along the western edge of the Royal National Park, where it is built as four-lane dual carriageway.. The only major engineering structures along its route are the twin Tom Uglys Bridge across Georges River. The northbound bridge is of steel truss construction, opened in 1929, whilst the southbound bridge is of prestressed concrete girders, opened in 1987.
It runs through Sydney's southern suburbs, via Kogarah, Sutherland and Engadine to the village of Waterfall.
South of Waterfall the highway is paralleled by the Princes Motorway to the top of Bulli Pass outside the city of Wollongong, which carries the majority of traffic. The Princes Highway then enters the northern suburbs of Wollongong and the Illawarra region via the Bulli Pass, whilst Mount Ousley Road, which is designated as part of national route 1, bypasses Wollongong's northern suburbs to meet the Princes Highway at, and carries inter-city traffic. Where Mount Ousley Road enters Wollongong, the Princes Motorway branches off Mount Ousley Road, and parallels the highway through the suburbs of Wollongong to. The Mount Ousley Road-Princes Motorway route is the inter-city and main urban arterial through Wollongong's southern suburbs, whereas the Princes Highway acts as a local arterial.
From the southern end of the Princes Motorway at Yallah, the Princes Highway is dual carriageway, mostly to freeway standard, to Kiama Heights, with the exception of the section from the Illawarra Highway to Tongarra Road in, which is four lane undivided. Beyond Kiama Heights, south of Sydney, the highway is single two lane carriageway to Cambewarra Road,. Design and preparation works are underway for the duplication of the highway from Kiama Heights to Cambewarra Road. This duplication is intended to include a bypass of, but adheres to the extremely hilly route from the southern end of the bypass to Berry, rather than the flat terrain immediately to the east, which the Illawarra railway line follows.
From Cambewarra Road the highway is four lane divided through Bomaderry and to near the junction with Warra Warra Road in South Nowra. Duplication to dual carriageway standard of a length south from here to Forest Road was scheduled for completion in early 2014, following a three-month cessation of work while measures were put in place to protect a hitherto unknown area of habitat of the endangered green and golden bell frog. Beyond this section is of four lane single carriageway from Forest Road to the junction with Jervis Bay Road.
From Jervis Bay Road southward the highway is mostly single two lane carriageway along the NSW South Coast, passing through Ulladulla, Batemans Bay, Moruya, Narooma, then bypassing Bega and Merimbula and passing through Eden, before crossing the border at the Black-Allen Line into Victoria, from Sydney and from Melbourne.
A substandard alignment at Victoria Creek south of was upgraded in 2012–13, as well as the Bega bypass. Realignments with associated new bridges are also proposed at Termeil Creek, some south of Ulladulla, and Dignams Creek, some south of Narooma. Current identified future projects are a bypass of Nowra-Bomaderry, and a bypass of Ulladulla-Milton.
In 2007 the NRMA claimed that the Princes Highway was a dangerous road with ten fatalities and 729 people injured on the highway between Sydney and the state border in 2006.

Victoria

In Victoria, the Princes Highway follows a very long and complex route. The route within metropolitan Melbourne carries the original individual names of sections of the Princes Highway on signage. Each road section has Princes Highway labelled in bold and the individual name in brackets, such as Dandenong Road or Geelong Road.
Apart from the routes National Alternative Route 1, C101 and C109, the M1 Freeway route intersects and this carries the much higher volume of traffic, including congestion in the peak periods, serving as the major, most direct and quickest route for Route 1 in Australia.
In Victoria the length from the South Australian border to the New South Wales border is. The highway passes through Orbost, Bairnsdale and Sale in the Gippsland region. The highway then passes through the Latrobe Valley, bypassing Morwell, Warragul and Pakenham to Dandenong and into the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Most of this section is freeway standard, with the main outstanding work being a freeway bypass of Traralgon, although the highway through Traralgon has already been built to urban dual carriageway standard.
As the road passes through Melbourne, it first follows the route of Lonsdale Street, then Dandenong Road to St Kilda, and Queens Road through Albert Park. Closer to Melbourne city centre, it follows the route of Kings Way, and then King Street through central Melbourne. It then follows Curzon Street after leaving the central business district to enter North Melbourne, and then follows Flemington Road northwest, then Racecourse Road, Smithfield Road and Ballarat Road. It starts again as Geelong Road where Geelong Road branches southwest off Ballarat Road, and Ballarat Road leads onto the Western Freeway. The reason for the confusing dual naming of the highway through Melbourne is that it follows streets and roads which were already named when the highway was named in 1920.
Through much of Melbourne and its suburbs, the route of National Route 1 is not the Princes Highway, but rather the Monash Freeway, which intersects the Princes Highway on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne, and then the West Gate Freeway which bypasses central Melbourne. These two freeways have been linked by the southern link of the CityLink tollway. This avoids the confusing and congested arrangement of roads that is the Princes Highway in central Melbourne. The M1 include an advanced freeway management system for its entire urban length, between Narre Warren and Werribee. Along with freeway sensors and associated data stations, overhead lane use management system gantries that show speed and lane availability, electronic message boards, real-time drive time signs and arterial road real-time Information signs ; there are the 64+ ramp signal and metering sites. Hence, the majority of the on-ramps are traffic light controlled, depending on the density and speed of the traffic.
Heading towards Geelong in a south-west direction, the West Gate Freeway and Geelong Road join together and become the Princes Freeway. Which, unusually for an Australian inter-city freeway, carries enough traffic to merit four to three lanes in either direction. On the northern outskirts of Geelong, the highway reverts from freeway to three lane dual carriageway through Geelong and its suburbs, with traffic light-controlled at-grade intersections. Through Geelong the highway is often heavily congested.
With the completion of the freeway standard Geelong Ring Road in, the M1 route follows the freeway-standard road from Winchelsea to Traralgon, without encountering any traffic lights. The ring road rejoins the original highway at Waurn Ponds on the western edge of Geelong.
Within Geelong, the Princes Highway starts at the junction of Princes Freeway in the northern Geelong suburb of Corio, and runs through Geelong's northern and southern suburbs via a inner-city western bypass of the Geelong City Centre, to the current Highway 1 segment of the Princes Highway at Waurn Ponds in Geelong's southern suburbs. The highway is six lane dual carriageway from Corio to Latrobe Terrace, continuing as a four-lane dual carriageway to Waurn Ponds. The 1989 re-alignment of the Princes Highway provides a dual carriageway, four-lane limited access road to replace the original route along Moorabool Street in South Geelong and High Street in Belmont. Upon the completion of the final section of the Geelong Ring Road, another section of the Princes Highway was superseded in 2013 at Waurn Ponds.
After Geelong the highway heads in a generally western direction, continuing with the 'M1' designation as a dual carriageway road to Winchelsea. West of Winchelsea, the road is presently is being reconstructed to dual carriageway standard, passing through Colac, before reaching Camperdown - ultimately reaching the port of Warrnambool. The section from Geelong to Warrnambool runs inland, and so avoids the slower, but scenic Great Ocean Road. From here, the Princes Highway passes through Portland before crossing the border into South Australia. At this point the highway is from Sydney, from Melbourne and from Adelaide.

South Australia

At Mount Gambier the highway takes a more northward tack as the coast curves to the northwest, passing the Coorong National Park. After Kingston SE, it turns inland to avoid the lakes at the mouth of the River Murray. Shortly before Tailem Bend it is joined by the Dukes Highway, part of the main route between Melbourne and Adelaide. The highway then turns north-west and becomes the South Eastern Freeway, crosses the Murray River, bypasses Murray Bridge and continues to Glen Osmond on Adelaide's southeastern outskirts.
At this point the Princes Highway is from Adelaide and from Sydney. It continues north-west via Glen Osmond Road to Adelaide city centre, where it runs west along South Terrace then turns north along King William Street through the city centre and then follows Main North Road to Port Wakefield Road where it rejoins the coast. From Port Wakefield it continues as the Augusta Highway, and follows the coast, skirting Port Pirie to continue on to Port Augusta, where it terminates at the intersection of the Eyre Highway and Stuart Highway.