Recovery and resilience the focus for Regional Roads Flood Recovery Works

Friday, 10 May 2024

Raising the road level and incorporating new drainage structures is the main focus of flood recovery works on key highways including the Eyre Highway and Stuart Highway.

The recovery works are being undertaken following extreme weather events and widespread flooding on regional roads across the state in January 2022.

The contract will soon be awarded for the construction of works to improve the flood resilience of the Eyre Highway west of Kimba. These works will raise the road level and incorporate new drainage structures to enable this section of road to withstand and remain open during flood events in future years.

On the Stuart Highway, similar works are planned at Glendambo, while at Lake Windabout, large scale scour protection and a new safety barrier will be incorporated.

Between Port Augusta and Pimba, select locations will see shoulder resealing along the Stuart Highway.

These works are being delivered under the Targeted Investment to Improve National Supply Chain Resilience, aimed at repairing flood damaged road infrastructure, restoring national and state supply chains, and reconnecting remote and regional communities and industries to pre-disaster conditions.

The program is jointly funded by the Australian Government ($60 million) and the South Australian Government ($15 million).

The upgrades delivered through this program will reduce economic impact of flooding events with more resilient infrastructure and provide support for the communities that rely on the road network. Road infrastructure will be able to return to functionality much sooner in the immediate aftermath of a disaster through these upgrades.

Previous upgrades completed under the program include repair of the Olympic Dam Highway and the Stuart Highway at Woocalla Creek.

The works join other flood-focused improvements on regional roads; earlier this year, works began on a $6.2 million upgrade on Tea Tree Road, Yunta, which includes sealing a 10.5-kilometre section and constructing three major floodways and a stormwater culvert to improve flood resilience in the area as part of the jointly funded Remote Roads Upgrade Pilot Program.

Works recently began on a $10.6 million upgrade of the Oodnadatta Track between Marla and Oodnadatta to reconstruct five major floodways and raise the surface level of the track, allowing it to remain open or be reopened sooner after rainfall, with $8.8 million in funding provided for the project under the Roads to Recovery Program.

The Strzelecki Track is also currently in the process of being sealed as part of a jointly funded $205 million upgrade, with just over 40 per cent, or 190 out of 472 kilometres, currently completed.