Why Townsville needs roads designed for real life
Road safety isn’t just a slogan, it’s a responsibility, for safer outcomes, we have to design and engineer for the way North Queensland actually lives, works, and moves.
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It’s a quintessential Aussie image: convoys of caravans snaking their way past cane fields, windows down, breathing the humidity of northern Queensland.
Over my 20+ years in the Mackay area, I’ve experienced this scene many times as I’ve travelled the Bruce Highway for holidays, sports events, and to visit family in Townsville and Cairns. For me, driving is always the only real option and it’s a lot of hours on the bitumen – Mackay to Cairns is nine hours when conditions are good. It doesn’t look that far on the map, but it really is!
Photo credit @coffeeandhops
During those trips I’ve seen it all – potholes, rockfalls, bushfires, and floodwaters turning bitumen into debris, trucks rolled over blocking roads and adding a three-hour detour to the already long trip. I’ve seen lack of overtaking lanes that led to frustrated drivers, many accidents and the slowly snaking convoys – especially on the 125 km stretch from Mackay to Proserpine, a stretch of road that was once notoriously dangerous, but has improved significantly over the years.
In regions like ours, the road is more than a connection.
It’s a lifeline.
For the communities along the Bruce, these aren’t one-off experiences. Events like this don’t just delay trips, they can fracture supply chains and isolate entire regions.
That’s why safe, resilient, high-quality road design isn’t optional here. It’s critical.
At Aurecon, we’ve seen the impact that thoughtful, regionally informed design can make. The once-dangerous 125 km stretch between Mackay and Proserpine is now safer thanks to overtaking lanes and targeted upgrades by the Department of Transport and Main Roads. We’re proud to have contributed to similar projects that improve safety, not just travel times.
Designing safer road networks in North Queensland means more than widening roads or lifting roads out of flood plains. It means understanding sugar cane rail, mill schedules, and why those mills can’t stop. It means factoring in tourist convoys, mining freight, native wildlife, and the way drought drives animals onto the highway. These aren’t side considerations, they’re central to safety.
Our team at Aurecon brings deep local insight and a track record of innovation to every kilometre. From koala fencing to bushfire recovery and disaster-resilient pavements, we’re helping shape a safer road network in North Queensland that’s not only better engineered but better understood.
Because in regions like ours, the road is more than a connection. It’s a lifeline.
Road safety isn’t just a slogan, it’s a responsibility, for safer outcomes, we have to design and engineer for the way North Queensland actually lives, works, and moves.
With over 30 years of lived experience in Far North Queensland, Andrew Wright brings unique local insight to every Bruce Highway project he helps design.
Reflecting on Queensland’s 2011 and 2013 floods, disaster recovery work in Gladstone highlighted that roads are more than infrastructure, they are lifelines, vital for reconnecting communities, supply chains and essential services.
From lived experience behind the wheel to designing upgrades on the ground, local expertise is driving safer, more resilient outcomes along the Bruce Highway.
Roads, Integrated Transport & Mobility Practice Leader – QLD, Australia
