Tyler Redway
THE Royal Automobile Association (RAA) will be returning to the Limestone Coast for its Regional Road Assessment as a progress report into the works which were put into the previous report of 2019.
RAA senior manager of Road Safety Charles Mountain said the Limestone Coast would be taken into consideration after inspecting the Broken Hill region, which was still in the process of being assessed.
“Once that’s completed, we’ll take the opportunity to review a number of the assessments, including the Limestone Coast, to see what works have progressed since the reports have been released,” Mr Mountain said.
“What we have seen so far is there still needs more work to be done on Princes Highway and sections of the Southern Ports Highway to bring them up to an acceptable standard.”
He added the RAA aimed to assess each regional area’s roads in full detail every five years, where a report would also come out at the end of the assessment period.
Mr Mountain said the ongoing maintenance of the road network was very important and the Southern Ports and Princes Highways were the two with the most criticism for the region.
“We will ensure that we follow up to see the work on those corridors has been completed,” he said.
“Usually it’s things such as the condition of the pavement itself whether it be rutting or cracking.
“Widening some of the culverts and bridges on the corridor is more of an expensive exercise, but in the longer term those sorts of projects need to be done.”
He added it was also important for the community to inform both the RAA and the local road authorities where problems may occur.
“It enables us, as an organisation, to advocate on behalf of the community to identify where we still believe further work is required not just in the Limestone Coast but across South Australia,” Mr Mountain said.
“It also helps from our perspective to understand whether people encounter any particular problems with how the network operates.”
He said the state of the Limestone Coast is “comparable” to the rest of the state and there had been an improvement to a number of key corridors.
He also mentioned the road with the most amount of feedback was Princes Highway and its current condition.
“Local issues still continue, but overall the general feeling is the corridors where the investment has been spent so far have made a welcome improvement,” he said.
“The road network from a tourism perspective is also very important in the regions, as well as other factors such as facilities for cycling and a shared pass strategy.”
