NEAR misses between trucks and cars on the Yarara Gap are a thing of the past following the completion of one of the biggest road projects in Greater Hume Shire in recent times.<\/p>\n
The $3.5 million reconstruction of a notorious 2.3-kilometre section of the Jingellic Road was officially opened on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Jingellic Road is a major link road between the Hume Highway and the Upper Murray areas with travel times reduced by up to 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
But Greater Hume mayor Heather Wilton spoke with personal experience about how dangerous the Yarara Gap stretch was before the upgrade.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a very narrow, winding, steep gradient with nowhere to pull off if you got into trouble,\u201d she told The Border Mail.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was being used by log trucks, B-doubles, stock transports and if you were caught on the wrong side of one of them it was a very scary event.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can actually drive on the road in top gear now.<\/p>\n
\u201cPreviously you were lucky to get up in second gear.\u201d<\/p>\n
B-double transports will be the biggest beneficiaries of the upgrade.<\/p>\n
The council estimates 30 new jobs and 100 indirect jobs will be created as a result of the better road over the Yarara Gap.<\/p>\n
Sawn logs from the softwood forests of the Upper Murray to the Ettamogah rail hub and Norske Skog paper mill can be carted by B-doubles instead of semi-trailers and livestock trucks previously avoided the road due to safety concerns when travelling between Holbrook and Corryong.<\/p>\n
Freight carriers will also have a viable alternative if Tumbarumba Road is shut to bushfires as happened in 2014.<\/p>\n
Greater Hume worked with Tumbarumba Shire in building the case for $1.75 million in federal funding and another $750,000 from the NSW government.<\/p>\n
Cr Wilton praised the efforts of contractors to keep the road open during the 30-week reconstruction.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunity engagement efforts prior to the letting of the tender and during the project meant that affected residents were kept informed throughout by council,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that the roadway remained open during the project met with high community approval.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albury MLA Greg Aplin attended the official opening along with representatives of contractor RECivil, project manager GHD and residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEAR misses between trucks and cars on the Yarara Gap are a thing of the past following the completion of one of the biggest road projects in Greater Hume Shire in recent times. The $3.5 million reconstruction of a notorious 2.3-kilometre section of the Jingellic Road was officially opened on Tuesday. Jingellic Road is a … Continue reading “Yarara Gap reconstruction officially opened by Greater Hume Shire”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hume"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.onradio.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}