Re: East West Highway, through the Centre.

[telljb@ozemail.com.au (< Tell >)]

"David & Jan Winter" <winterd@nospam-icenet.com.au>
wrote and I quote selectively:
>
>Certainly in WA, there is a move by the Dept of Transport to look at a
>Perth-Alice Springs Hwy. Its use would be primarily tourism, and servicing
>the tourist accommodation business (Yulara, Alice) by WA vendors. Extending
>across from Erldunda to Birdsville and Quilpie would provide an attractive
>Perth-Brisbane route, but whether the Feds would ever come at the capital
>cost of crossing the Simpson, well that's another story.

The plan is to seal the existing dirt roads such as the
Plenty Highway just North of Alice Springs which is
partially sealed, all the way into Queensland to link
up with the beef road network.
The road to the Rock is sealed as you would be aware,
it would be a matter of sealing the existing track
through Warburton and onto Laverton.

>There are some old mines near the border east of Warburton, and it is on a
>mineral shield so there's potential for some activity there, but nothing
>driving a major road investment I know of. Other than tourism (a major
>economic sector), there's only the outside prospect of some servicing of
>mining industry needs at Mt Isa by Kalgoorlie/Perth based
>supplier/contractors - not enough for rail to worry about.

Many years ago, the Stuart Highway from Alice to Port
Augusta was a corrugated billy goat track.  Up in the
far North of WA, ditto as well.  In Queensland the
route from Cloncurry down through Longreach and Winton
was another horror stretch.  It was said back then by
many, that these roads would never be sealed, they were
as a result of the Bi-Centenial roads programme and
they are either National Highway standard, or very
close and all of them carry mobs of road trains.
A quick look in the NT yellow pages reveals a plethora
of transport operators some with daily services to
Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney.
Point is, this proposed route may not seem important at
the moment with regards to transport, but given what
happened with the others above, I would not under
estimate its future potential for the truckies.

Cheers

----Terry Burton