{"id":36423,"date":"2026-06-22T23:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/36423\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T23:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T23:04:15","slug":"sturt-highway-upgrade-plea-as-taskforce-describes-freight-route-as-sketchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/36423\/","title":{"rendered":"Sturt Highway upgrade plea as taskforce describes freight route as ‘sketchy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Communities and councils are calling for urgent safety upgrades across a 70-kilometre stretch of highway on one of Australia’s critical freight routes.<\/p>\n

The Sturt Highway stretches about 605km from Tarcutta in New South Wales, through Victoria, to finish in Adelaide, South Australia.<\/p>\n

South-west NSW residents have frequently raised safety concerns about the highway between Gol Gol and Euston and about the intersections serving agricultural and freight traffic.<\/p>\n

Last month, a man in his 40s died after a multi-vehicle crash on that stretch of highway.<\/p>\n

The fatal collision happened only hours after a truck driver escaped injury when his truck rolled over just kilometres away.<\/p>\n

And on Monday, further east near Narrandera, there was a crash on the highway in which two people died.<\/p>\n

\"Road<\/p>\n

The scene of an accident on the Sturt Highway between Gol Gol and Euston last month. (ABC News: Wade Stephens)<\/p>\n

Preliminary Transport for NSW 2025 data showed there had been four crashes reported between Gol Gol and Paringi on the Sturt Highway.<\/p>\n

Two crashes resulted in injuries, while the other two were tow-away crashes.<\/p>\n

Data for 2026 on the same stretch of road showed there had been one fatal crash.<\/p>\n

However, the data only reported crashes in which a person was killed or injured, or in which at least one vehicle was towed, meaning minor collisions would not be included in the data.<\/p>\n

Wentworth Shire Council Mayor Daniel Linklater said the highway was a very high-volume and use area with “far too many sketchy episodes”.<\/p>\n

“We had the dreadful incident [last month] at Trentham Cliffs where a young member of our community lost his life,” Cr Linklater said.<\/p>\n

“We have to make this corridor safer and more productive.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Daniel Linklater says safety upgrades are needed especially with increasing freight volumes.\u00a0 (ABC Rural: Timu King)<\/p>\n

Wentworth Shire is one of eight councils that make up the Sturt Highway Taskforce committee, which is seeking investment for the road’s improvements.<\/p>\n

Cr Linklater said investment into the Sturt Highway continued to be one of their “primary advocacy areas”.<\/p>\n

“An overtaking lane or a series of overtaking lanes is long overdue and absolutely necessary throughout the Wentworth and Balranald shires,” he said.<\/p>\n

Taskforce chair and Murrumbidgee Shire Mayor Ruth McRae said high-speed traffic movement, significant freight volumes and fatigue by interstate drivers contributed to crashes.<\/p>\n

“People use this road every day and tell us that they don’t feel that the road has kept pace with the traffic task it’s now carrying,” Cr McRae said.<\/p>\n

Transport for NSW data between July 2019 and June 2024 highlighted there were 277 crashes along the NSW stretch of the highway.<\/p>\n

In the same period, there were 241 casualties, with 15 of those crashes fatal and 40 left drivers with serious injuries.<\/p>\n

The ABC understands that 50 per cent of the crashes were multi-vehicle crashes, 40 per cent single vehicle and heavy vehicles were involved in about 28-30 per cent of the crashes.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Sturt Highway between Gol Gol and Paringi has had multiple accidents and rollovers in the past 18 months.\u00a0 (Supplied: Wentworth Shire Council)<\/p>\n

Billions on renewable projects<\/p>\n

Cr McRae said the Sturt Highway was built for a very different era and was now carrying significantly higher freight volumes like oversized renewable energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n

“Given the billions being invested nationally in renewable energy infrastructure, investing in the road network that delivers these projects is, we feel, both reasonable and necessary,” Cr McRae said.<\/p>\n

“It makes sense to invest a fraction of that amount into the road infrastructure required to transport these renewable energy projects safely.<\/p>\n

“The scale of the investment does not yet match the scale of the challenge.”<\/p>\n

The group wants a safety upgrade of the entire highway, rather than isolated upgrades.<\/p>\n

“I think the time is here and right now that the Sturt Highway needs a significant change of oversight by the government for investment,” Cr McRae said.<\/p>\n

The committee had identified upgrades it believed would improve safety immediately, including more overtaking lanes to reduce risky passing behaviour, wider centre line separation and more heavy vehicle rest areas.<\/p>\n

“Between Mildura, Gol Gol and Euston, there are long stretches where drivers can spend long periods behind heavy vehicles and [have] limited to no safe overtaking opportunities. This creates frustration and increases risk-taking behaviour,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Light<\/p>\n

The Sturt Highway Taskforce wants a safety upgrade of the entire highway. (ABC Riverland: Will Hunter)<\/p>\n

The taskforce committee asked the federal government for $200 million for the strategic oversight and for the government to commit to investment over multiple years.<\/p>\n

Cr McRae said she was disappointed no money was in the 2026-27 federal budget.<\/p>\n

The committee will request the $200 million investment from the NSW government in the upcoming state budget.<\/p>\n

The group estimated $600-800 million would be required to bring the Sturt Highway to a safe standard.<\/p>\n

Member for Murray Helen Dalton has thrown her support behind the taskforce reiterating the need for upgrades and investment.<\/p>\n

“It’s a main arterial route and [the NSW Minister for Transport] needs to get on with the job and actually allocate the money,” Ms Dalton said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, NSW Minister for Roads Jenny Aitchison said she was “deeply concerned by the crashes” on the south-west section of the highway.<\/p>\n

“Transport for NSW continues to work with the Sturt Highway Taskforce and local councils to review crash data and identify priority safety improvements,” Ms Aitcheson said.<\/p>\n

More news from regional Victoria<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Communities and councils are calling for urgent safety upgrades across a 70-kilometre stretch of highway on one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,30947,3139,14095,30945,4993,15120,30946],"class_list":["post-36423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-crashes","tag-funding","tag-highway","tag-road-funding","tag-roads","tag-sturt-highway","tag-truck-route"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}