Tap Hill

Transport for NSW has partnered with BMD and AECOM to form the Newell Highway Program Alliance.

The strategic partnership will deliver about 40 additional overtaking lanes in an estimated four years rather than the likely eight years it would take to fund and deliver this work using traditional procurement methods.

This innovative delivery mode will result in a minimum of 60 kilometres of new overtaking lanes to improve safety, reduce travel times, allow more accurate travel planning and improve freight efficiency.

The new overtaking lanes are expected to provide around 33 minutes of travel time savings along the length of the Newell Highway from the Victorian to the Queensland border.

The Australian Government has approved $76.54 million for safety improvement works to be carried out next to seven of the overtaking lane projects.

The work includes widening the road shoulders and centreline, and installing rumble strips along the highway.

The northbound overtaking lane at the bottom of Tap Hill has been extended for about 1.4 kilometres along the highway, about 44 kilometres north of Gilgandra.

The construction of a new one kilometre northbound overtaking lane to close the gap between the existing overtaking lanes at the top of Tap Hill is also complete.

The total length of the Tap Hill overtaking lane is a huge 5.7 kilometres long.

Once completed, road users travelling on the Newell Highway between Gilgandra and Coonabarabran will experience increased overtaking opportunities to help improve journey reliability.

Other benefits of the project include:

• improved safety for all road users
• reduced travel times
• more accurate travel planning
• improved freight efficiency.

• June 2021 project notification

  Completion of work.