What a choke: Motorists line up to condemn Centenary Motorway congestion
The clogged Centenary Motorway, the bane of commuters forced to travel between Brisbane and the city’s west, has been named as one of Queensland’s most frustrating roads in the RACQ’s latest red spot congestion survey.
The motorway, where motorist are regularly forced to a standstill by everything from vehicle crashes to sewage spills, attracted almost 2,000 nominations for locations where commuters experienced gridlock.
The Bruce Highway, 40 times the motorway’s length, attracted just 11 more votes to top the list of most congested roads.
The RACQ has used the results to call for the fast tracking of planned upgrades to the motorway.
RACQ head of public policy Rebecca Michael said the road had too few lanes, a lack of capacity and problematic interchanges.
“At its slowest, traffic is averaging only 31 kilometres per hour during the morning and afternoon peaks, resulting in driver frustration and lost productivity,” she said.
She said the latest improvement, a $244 million duplication of the Centenary Bridge, would free up one bottleneck but would do “very little” to get western suburbs drivers moving freely along the entire road.
“We want to see a rolling pipeline of upgrades along the whole corridor, with additional lanes and interchange improvements as well as variable speed limits and ramp metering,” Michael said.
