I READ with amusement both news articles on the Orange-Mudgee direct road upgrade published in Thursday’s Central Western Daily
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Obviously, Andrew Gee and Denis Gregory have not done any in-depth research.
I have driven the route in its current state. Yes, it is considerably shorter in distance than travelling via Wellington, the quickest route. However, because of the lengths of the hilly and tight, winding sections on both sides of the Macquarie River Long Point crossing the trip actually takes 20 minutes longer than travelling via Wellington due to the lower average speed.
Even if a bridge was constructed at the Macquarie River crossing and the entire route was sealed with bitumen the travel time would not be reduced because of the hilly and winding route the road takes.
In order to reduce the travel time a considerable length of the route would have to be flattened and realigned to increase the radius of the bends, thus allowing for a higher average speed over the entire route.
To do this would require a considerable amount of expensive civil engineering and construction.
This would require exorbitant cost, and this exorbitant cost would not be economically justifiable for the amount of traffic that would use the route.
To construct a bridge at Long Point and seal the road in its entire length on its current alignment will still be costly and will probably only reduce the travel time by five or 10 minutes, if that - still making the travel time longer than driving via Wellington.
The question is, do people take the shorter route that is longer in travel time or the longer route that is shorter in travel time?
Just as another point of interest, my vehicle used roughly the same amount of fuel using either route, therefore the shorter route, because it is more hilly and winding, used more fuel per kilometre.
It is not a viable project and will be a gross waste of money.
The money would be better spent rebuilding the Northern Distributor Road around Orange to the standard it should have been built to when first constructed.
Philip Branwhite, Orange