State Route 80 - QLD

[Michael Greenslade]

State Route 80 in southern QLD goes from the New England Hwy near Clifton across to the Warrego Hwy at Gatton, although signage stops at the "Old Warrego Hwy" junction, just west of Gatton. Presumably the route would connect between the A2 and A3 but no signage through Gatton itself would agree with my suggestion.

 

Anyway, the route starts in general Darling Downs farmland, eventually reaches the Great Divide escarpment and then follows Ma Ma Creek for the remainder through to Gatton. Although fully sealed, the quality varies considerably. The western end has no shoulders with some line marking, just down from the escarpment the road is two laned, but no line markings - some sections are single laned bitumen only and then nearing Gatton, the road is highway standard.

 

It questions why some rural roads in QLD score a State Route guernsey and others dont, despite ones having no route classification being poor in quality. I generally have no problem with this road being a State Route, just that perhaps more should be added, or changed around.

 

Here are some pics (attached) - notice the change in quality. And notice some of unusual signs - I was suprised that Brisbane became a focal point on one of the directional signs!

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Sam Laybutt]

Thanks for the great set of photos. There is an 'END' sign at the intersection of Gatton-Clifton Rd with the old Warrego Hwy (Gatton-Helidon Rd iirc) but the newish signs on A2 suggest that it continues through Gatton (and of course, in typical DMR fashion, the new signs through Gatton omit SR80).
 
I sent a please explain email to the DMR some months ago - thanks for reminding me to chase it up! Not happy that I didn't even get an acknowledgement.
 

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From: m.gree...@goodwinmidson.com.au
To: aussie-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Aussie Highways] State Route 80 - QLD
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:13:10 +1000

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[Trent Thomson]

Great set of pics MG. When you go west in Queensland it's like going back in time!

Shame on whoever designed the A3 signs, they're awful! I'm really hating the 'thin' road name patches that are being used on new signs in Queensland. The July 2009 TRUM (clause F5.1, vol 1.21) is very clear about the size of road name patches:

Height = Letter height x 2

Width = Road name width + letter height

They haven't followed the standards... AGAIN!

It's a shame that Toowoomba was incorporated into the Metro Region last year. They always had better signs than Brisbane did (although still not great). The restructure makes no sense either. Logan City is now part of the South Coast (Gold Coast) region for example, despite being highly integrated with Brisbane and gaining parts of Gold Coast City as part of the recent local government amalgamations. Toowoomba on the other hand is 90 km from Ipswich (former extent of Metro region) with sweet F.A. in between. Why increase the number of LGAs Metro has to deal with? It's stupid.

[Paul Rands]

Hi MG,

Nice pics, is one of those AD signs freeway green?

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Paul Rands
paul...@gmail.com