The Great Divide: Why our major route over mountains is a headache, not a highway

The CWD, alongside our sister publication in Bathurst, the Western Advocate, has been searching for that phrase as we kick-off our series of stories about the highway: its recent problems, its current state, the redirected funding for its duplication and the seemingly endless debate between the Nationals and Labor over which side has a proper, serious plan to improve the road.

Some will say that this is ground we've already covered. And that's true.

Unfortunately, the media focus on the road and its myriad problems hasn't convinced our politicians to get on with the urgent job of fixing it.

In fact, the opposite is true: since taking power, the new Labor state and federal governments have taken funding from the highway and are talking about developing a "strategic corridor assessment" that, to the cynically minded, sounds like a way to kick the can further down the potholed, narrow, landslide-prone road.

Some might say we're anti-Labor in our focus on the highway. And that's not true.

The CWD and Advocate are pro-the party that will make the Great Western Highway worthy of the name - that will progressively widen it to two lanes each way from Katoomba on so that it doesn't close at the drop of a hat; that will fix pinch points and prevent the ridiculous situation of vehicles being held at the base of Victoria Pass on a busy day so that they don't conk out while stopped on the steep incline.

The jury remains out on whether the previous Coalition state and federal governments would have been able to match action with talk in their plans for a full duplication of the road from Lithgow to Katoomba.

We'll never know for sure because both those governments are no longer in power.

It is Labor that now holds the purse strings and it is Labor that has the choice - or not - to do what needs to be done with the main route from Sydney to the Central West - ie, treat it with the same respect as the main thoroughfares going north and south from the state capital.

The CWD and Advocate are both supportive of the current projects to duplicate small sections of the highway at Medlow Bath and Little Hartley, but believes this should only be the entree to a main course of roadworks.

Anyone from this region who has been unsure whether they would be able to make a medical appointment, a flight, a funeral or even something as simple as a family gathering in Sydney because of the problems in the Blue Mountains in the past year or two would no doubt agree.

We have little interest in a slanging match and less interest in hearing about the Minns and Albanese governments' many competing priorities.

The fact remains that there was money for Great Western Highway duplication works put aside and that money is there no longer.

This newspaper believes the highway upgrade funding should be returned to the project and extensive duplication work should get started as soon as possible. No pressure, but tomorrow would be ideal.