Why is Sunshine Mwy rather an undivided highway than a divided highway with grade separated intersections?

[#130km/hforthehume]

I've always thought about this for a really long time, but why is Sunshine Motorway rather an undivided single carriageway, with roundabouts? Sure, there's a small bit of the so called "motorway", that is divided with grade separate intersections, but most of it isn't. And does anyone know why? Was there any proposal to make it a divided dual carriageway?

And it is probably why it yet has an alpha yet. Can't be an M route, but it's a motorway

[Aevion]

Ah yes, the Sunshine Motorway is an interesting project. Lot of stuff to say about Stage 1 of this road but I'll stick to Stage 2 which I believe is what you're referring to, which is the section from Pacific Paradise to Peregian Beach. I don't know a huge amount about this stage but I'll do my best :)

From what I can gather, this stage was built rather cheaply and very quickly. Due to the controversy surrounding the tolls on the first stage of the motorway, it was decided this section would be built without a toll (however the prices at the existing booths south of Pacific Paradise were raised following the opening of this stage). To cut costs, they installed at-grade roundabouts with the intention of providing overpasses at a later date, similar to how the Gateway Motorway was originally built. Local road connections, however, received overpasses or underpasses.

The plan was to ultimately upgrade this section to dual-carriageways which would have been funded by the tolls, however when the tolls were removed in 1996 funding completely dried up for the motorway. There have been several plans over the years for an upgrade of this stretch, but no timeframes just yet for construction. Criminally there is still a short stretch of single-carriageway from Kawana Way to Nicklin Way but this is due to be rectified in the next ten years, along with the disaster that is the Mooloolaba interchange.

Emu Mountain Road (originally a mostly-discontinuous gravel trail but completely rebuilt and extended as part of the motorway project) appears to have been proclaimed a motorway sometime in the early 2010's, following the same setup as the Sunshine Motorway (terminating the designation just prior to the roundabouts). Originally Emu Mountain Road had no roundabouts on its length; these were added in 2006 as part of growing development (Doonan Bridge Road) and as part of Walter Hay Drive (Eumarella Road). 

An alpha would be nice for the motorway (M70 to Pacific Paradise and A70 beyond perhaps?), but given TMR's current reputation with alphas its probably best that it doesn't until they can get their act together (which I highly doubt). 

[AlienChex]

Funny thing is the tolls were removed because it was hard to justify tolling a two-lane “motorway” with roundabouts, and people just used SR6. Had they made a full four lane motorway with grade-separated intersections from the start, it may still  be tolled to this day

[Aevion]

I can see why. They really shot themselves in the foot with the first stage by initially claiming it would be toll free before changing tune later on, not to mention the fact that Stage 1 was built over several existing roads. To build the second stage as they did just made it worse. It's really more of a high-standard arterial than a motorway, however a lot of that stretch has warped under the traffic and is not so high-standard anymore. Hopefully once the new Mooloolaba interchange is completed they'll turn their attention to this bit of the motorway.

Surprisingly a grade-separated interchange did pop up along this section in 2017 at Peregian Springs, but it was a developer-funded project.

[#130km/hforthehume]

At least, SR70 is much more a straightforward route than SR6 is, although the "START MOTORWAY" signs are very much misleading

[Aevion]

Yeah it's definitely an unusual example of a motorway. Hopefully once the new Mooloolaba interchange is completed we'll see the section north of Pacific Paradise duplicated and grade-separated and it can finally be the road it should have always been. Unfortunately it sounds like the Mooloolaba one will be a very dragged out project due to them basically having to tear down everything that's there and rebuild it from scratch, so it could be a while.