Residents can expect the number of freight trucks on the region’s roads to increase by up to 86 per cent by 2020, according to NRMA president Wendy Machin.
Ms Machin is visiting Orange over the weekend for the Gnoo Blas Classic car show and will also be a guest at the enthusiasts’ dinner tonight.
She expects road safety to be one of the main things on the agenda during her visit as well as driver training, road rules, and young drivers especially as the event is “built on people who love driving”.
Although moving freight to rail would go someway to minimising heavy vehicles and improving road safety on highways, trucks will still be needed to move goods “from the train to the door”, Ms Machin said.
“There’s going to be a massive increase and that’s going to happen all over the state,” she said.
“We’ve been saying to the government for a long time ‘you’ve got to plan for this’.
“Freight is going to double by 2020 and treble by 2050.”
Ms Machin said ideally more funding for road maintenance should come from the state and federal governments.
“The question is finding the money and getting the money from different levels of government,” she said.
Ms Machin said it was “a real concern” when the state government promotes tourist attractions yet gives little thought to the state of the roads in the area
She believes a program targeting funding to roads in tourist areas, similar to the Roads to Recovery and Black Spot programs, could be developed.
“Around the state there are lots of gaps in the road network,” she said.
“We need to maintain our roads.
“We aren’t keeping what we have in good condition.”
The high number of deaths in car crashes on country roads is “still a huge issue”, Ms Machin said, with improvements to road quality, driver training and safer cars some ways of reducing the death toll.
“It’s one of the areas where we haven’t made a lot of progress and sadly it’s mostly locals,” she said.
Ms Machin said in many instances people are killed close to their homes.
“We get complacent, I’m guilty of that myself,” she said.
Ms Machin said rising costs to country councils has seen some return sealed roads to dirt as it is cheaper and easier to maintain which was a “real concern”.
She applauded the state government’s “long-term planning” to put a corridor of the Blue Mountains aside for the future Bells Line expressway.
clare.colley@ruralp ress.com
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