Princes Highway upgrade

Upgrading our critical infrastructure

The Princes Highway is critical to a thriving NSW South Coast. It unlocks economic, employment and social opportunity for the region and connects regional centres and essential services. It helps drive the State’s third largest regional economy, is relied upon by over 500,000 locals and welcomes almost four million tourists each year. It is also an important freight corridor supporting numerous regional communities which are still recovering from the severe bushfire and flood events of 2019–20. 

Transport for NSW is delivering a long-term program for the progressive upgrade of the Princes Highway between Nowra and the Victorian border.

Understanding transport as a mechanism for greater good

Increasingly, we expect our transport corridors and associated services to provide more than just transport functions – we see them as enabling a broad range of social, economic and environmental benefits for places, businesses and communities.

In this context, the TfNSW Princes Highway Upgrade Program is a prime opportunity for demonstrating the greater good we can derive from targeted and tailored investment in a range of infrastructure, services and policy interventions. The proposed investment in the Princes Highway corridor is an opportunity to create not only a safer, more accessible corridor, but also to support the liveability, sustainability and prosperity of the region as a whole.

Investment in the highway will support the short-term recovery process, through injection of economic activity within the region, but will also facilitate long-term employment, economic growth and diversity.

Building on significant investment

Considerable work along the Princes Highway has already been completed. Since 2011, the Australian and NSW governments have invested $2.5 billion upgrading the highway to create safer and more efficient journeys. This investment is transforming and connecting communities, improving safety, easing traffic congestion and growing regional economies.

In March 2019, the Australian and NSW Governments committed $1.5 billion to upgrade the Princes Highway between Nowra and the Victorian border. In May 2021, further funding was announced by the Australian Government, bringing the total value to $1.9 billion.

Ensuring the safety and wellbeing of workers

The proposed upgrades require a large workforce to deliver the program and ensuring the safety, health and wellbeing of the construction, operations and maintenance workers is a priority and a key consideration in the planning and development of projects.

Serving a diverse range of users

The Princes Highway corridor carries in excess of 30 million vehicles every year, completing over 640 million vehicle kilometres travelled. Transport users along the corridor include:

• commuters, workers and tradespeople (92% of people live and work in the same LGA within the South Coast Region, and 72% travel to work via car)
  
  
• local customers, with varying needs, wants and interactions within the corridor:
  • retirees (26.7% people within the corridor are over 65 years old)
  • education users (approximately 80 educational institutions are located on the corridor)
  • recreational users (the area is home to numerous parks and recreational spaces)
  • retail and commercial users (retail trade accounts for 13% of jobs in the South Coast Region)
  • vulnerable communities (13% of the population in the region provides unpaid assistance to a person with a disability, 2% of the population do not own a vehicle, and 19% do not have internet access at home)
  • Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander communities (5% of the population identifies as part of these communities)
    
    
• tourists and travellers (12.8 million people per year visit the NSW South Coast [Destination NSW 2020] in comparison to a total residential population of less than 0.5 million); during the peak summer period, the population in some key centres can triple
  
  
• emergency responders (who use the corridor as a central spine to provide access to and within the region)
  
  
• freight and deliveries (heavy vehicle traffic along the corridor ranges from 11.5% of vehicles per day in the north to 20% of vehicles per day in the south).

While many of these users share common needs and desires with respect to the corridor (e.g. the need for road safety), there are also many differences between the various users’ experiences and expectations.

Establishing a shared vision

To understand how the role and importance of the corridor vary between the different users, TfNSW conducted a series of stakeholder workshops leading to the subsequent development of an agreed vision for the corridor:

The Princes Highway enables the movement of people and goods and supports the sustainable growth of the local economy, employment opportunities and population. It contributes to the character of the places it serves and is resilient to adapt to natural hazards and climate change. It responds to changing land use and supports new technologies, new industries and economic trends.

This vision encompasses several key themes:

• Safety: a safer corridor for all customers and communities including local traffic, freight, tourists, public and active transport users, operators and maintainers.
• Resilience: a corridor that can be efficiently managed and maintained while adapting to changing social, environmental and economic factors, including the ability to quickly recover from natural disasters and respond to change.
• Liveability: a corridor that connects communities and contributes to providing attractive and healthy places to live, work and play.
• Sustainability: a corridor that is socially, environmentally and economically sustainable and unlocks a wide range of benefits for communities and other users.
• Connectivity and accessibility: a corridor that has good physical and digital connectivity and accessibility, providing access to opportunities and services.

This vision has shaped the project objectives. The upgrade program is focusing on identifying solutions that address these themes, determining a program of works that not only responds to current corridor needs but also the broader constraints to growth and resilience in the NSW South Coast Region.

Engaging with the community

The Princes Highway Upgrade Program was officially launched in March 2020 with the announcement of three projects: Jervis Bay Road and Princes Highway intersection, Milton Ulladulla bypass and Moruya bypass.

Community feedback on these proposals was invited, aiming to:

• inform local communities and stakeholders of the plans for a safer Princes Highway, including proposed steps and time frames
• communicate the benefits of the upgrade
• build a database of interested community members and groups who wish to engage with the project and be kept informed as the work progresses
• explain how community input will be considered during the development of the project
• understand people’s initial concerns about the projects, including adjacent and nearby property owners and transport users, and gain further insight into potential issues
• acknowledge and be sensitive to the hardship communities continue to face, including the personal and economic impacts of drought, bushfires and the COVID‑19 outbreak
• acknowledge that transport upgrades play a vital role in emergency management and resilience; this has become a major concern for South Coast communities.

The project team also consulted with emergency services and government agencies to acknowledge and learn from the broad range of experiences of the recent bushfire season.

Responding to COVID-19 restrictions

Community information sessions were scheduled for March and April 2020, but due to the COVID-19 restrictions on public meetings, face-to-face engagement had to be cancelled. An alternative engagement method was established, using 30-minute Facebook Live Q&A sessions. The online sessions were well attended and resulted in an increase in the number of submissions received following information sessions.

Other initiatives in response to COVID-19 were:

• hosting meetings with community groups using Zoom teleconferencing facilities; coaching was offered to help people feel comfortable with this new way of communication
• expanding the program’s digital and social media presence; this was an important way of advertising the online sessions and encouraging engagement with interactive maps and surveys
• encouraging people who were not able to access or not comfortable with online sessions to make submissions via phone
• working with community groups and local councils to identify who might prefer printed forms and postage-paid envelopes.

Lessons learnt

The project vision and objectives were informed by ongoing and regular consultation with local, state and federal government agencies including:

• Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications
• NSW Government agencies including Infrastructure NSW; Department of Planning, Industry and Environment; Emergency Services; Resilience NSW; Port Authority of NSW; NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service; Destination NSW and NSW Health
• local councils including Shoalhaven City Council, Eurobodalla Shire Council, Bega Valley Shire Council
• industry groups from the freight and timber industries.

Early engagement with these stakeholders enabled the project team to obtain a grassroots understanding of the issues relating to the Princes Highway from a range of different perspectives, informed by a local place-based understanding of the regional context.

Quick facts