Bypasses of bypasses

[humehwy31]

I just realised that there exists a situation on the Pacific Highway where there is a bypass of a bypass.

The town of Nambucca Heads was first bypassed in 1980 (a two-lane limited-access road with at-grade intersections). Then in 2017 this bypass was itself bypassed by a motorway-standard road as part of the Warrell Creek to Nambucca Heads Pacific Highway upgrade.

Does anyone else know of a similar bypass-of-a-bypass (meta-bypass?) in Australia? I think they are reasonably common in North America (e.g. the Trans-Canada Highway through Fredericton, New Brunswick).

Cheers,
Brad

[Brendan Terrett]

Would Peats Ridge Road (which bypassed Gosford for Newcastle-bound traffic) being bypassed by the F3 Mooney Mooney Bridge count? 

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[Lachlan Sims]

Another example of a more recent bypass bypassed is Bangalow

The Pacific Highway has many examples of deviations around deviations with the current alignment being the third or fourth generation of the road

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[Vincent Muller]

The Maitland bypass has been bypassed by the Hunter Expressway.

Also maybe not specifically what you had in mind, but weren't the Dunmore bends on the Princes Highway constructed to bypass Pioneer Drive? They've since been bypassed too.

[Henry Ung]

What about Camden? The original bypass is Camden Bypass, which in turn is bypassed by the Hume Motorway.

On 17 January 2018 at 18:27, Vincent Muller <vincent....@gmail.com> wrote:

The Maitland bypass has been bypassed by the Hunter Expressway.

Also maybe not specifically what you had in mind, but weren't the Dunmore bends on the Princes Highway constructed to bypass Pioneer Drive? They've since been bypassed too.

On Wed, 17 Jan. 2018, 18:05 Lachlan Sims, <lachl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Another example of a more recent bypass bypassed is Bangalow

The Pacific Highway has many examples of deviations around deviations with the current alignment being the third or fourth generation of the road

> On 17 Jan 2018, at 3:56 pm, 'humehwy31' via Aussie Highways <aussie-highways@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> I just realised that there exists a situation on the Pacific Highway where there is a bypass of a bypass.
>
> The town of Nambucca Heads was first bypassed in 1980 (a two-lane limited-access road with at-grade intersections). Then in 2017 this bypass was itself bypassed by a motorway-standard road as part of the Warrell Creek to Nambucca Heads Pacific Highway upgrade.
>
> Does anyone else know of a similar bypass-of-a-bypass (meta-bypass?) in Australia? I think they are reasonably common in North America (e.g. the Trans-Canada Highway through Fredericton, New Brunswick).
>
> Cheers,
> Brad
>
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[Sam Laybutt]

As Lachlan said, there are quite a few on the Pacific Highway, e.g.

- Port Macquarie/Hastings River
- Telegraph Point
- Warrell Creek
- Macksville southward to Warrell Creek
- Swan Creek (to be bypassed by Woolgoolga-Ballina)
- Cowper (ditto)
- Maclean (ditto)
- Wardell (partial bypass of the 1960s deviation to bypass Burns Point Ferry)
- Newrybar
- Bangalow

I've only included the 60s-90s projects in that list, if you go back to the original 1928 alignment then there are many sections with 3 or 4 different alignments over the years.

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Subject: [Aussie Highways] Bypasses of bypasses

 

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[Sam Laybutt]

Also Woolgoolga - the 1960s bypass of River St has been bypassed by the new A1

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Subject: Re: [Aussie Highways] Bypasses of bypasses

 

[Aevion]

Nearly the entire current Bruce Highway between Bald Hills and Cooroy is a bypass of a bypass too. Much of the original two lane highway was rebuilt and realigned in the 50s/60s/70s, only to predominantly be bypassed by the current four lane highway.

Can't think of any others off the top of my head....

[Aevion]

Could projects like the new M5 tunnel in Sydney be counted? Does the M5 qualify as a bypass of the Hume Highway?

[Darren Hodges]

Missed this earlier.

I think a Victorian entry would be the Calder at Elphinstone. The
original route would've been what's now Wright St., including the level
crossing over the Bendigo line. An overpass was built to remove the
crossing from the highway (remaining for local traffic) and bypass the
town. Although single carriageway, there were on and off ramps which
still appear on streetview, but have been removed and converted to
normal intersections from what I see on the overhead views (haven't been
out that way for ages). The section was marked as a freeway on some
older maps.
Of course this bypass has since been bypassed by the M79.

Darren.

[Sam Laybutt]

This is a great example - one of Victoria's infamous single carriageway freeways. 

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Subject: Re: [Aussie Highways] Bypasses of bypasses

[Scott Davis]

I missed this question last month...

The Gawler bypass just out of the Adelaide metro area is the second alignment that I know of, or third of you count the Northern Expressway. The 1960s Gawler bypass was one lane each way, It's alignment was apporximately what is now the southbound off-ramp at Two Wells Road, then Two Wells Road/Winckel Bridge/Jack Cooper Drive/Hind Court/BreretonRoad back on to the current Main North Road Gawler Bypass, ending as the terminating road of a Tee-junction where the Adelaide Road came out of Gawler. My wife grew up where she could see the road a couple of kilometres from that junction and recalls watching the queue of traffic at the end of long weekends waiting to get through the junction.

The grade separations at Redbanks Road and Horrocks Highway were added as part of the second bypass, I think. Horrocks might have also been upgraded as the Sturd Highway dual carriageway was extended. Construction of the Northern Expressway interchange moved the northbound carriageway between Two Wells Road and the railway bridge, too.

[Sam Laybutt]

Has Geelong been mentioned? The original Moorabool St/High St route was bypassed by the ring road

In Geraldton, the original alignment of the Mt Magnet Rd was via Eastward Rd/Johnston St/Eastern Rd/Bayly St; Utakarra Road was built in the late 1960s as part of the bypass to the Port (now John Willcock Link/NWCH) and then bypassed by the Geraldton Southern Transport Corridor Stage 2 project in 2009. A section of John Wilcock Link (then called Portway) was also bypassed on the approach to the Port as part of Stage 1. 

[Paul Rands]

Hi Brad, 

Here are the ones that come to mind:

• Mandurah Bypass bypassed by Forrest Hwy
• Bunbury Bypass (Robertson Dr / Forrest Hwy), surpassed by a heavy vehicle detour, which will eventually become a bypass of the bypass
• Princes Hwy, Kembla Grange to Dapto. The route bypassed the old highway over Mullet Creek in the early 70s near the golf course, and was superseded by Southern Fwy.
• Princes Hwy, Mt Brown. A bypass was made in the early to mid 20th century around Mt Brown, and then it was superseded in the late 80s when the the Southern Fwy was extended.

Paul Rands

li...@paulrands.com

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[Aussie Highways] Bypasses of bypasses

[andrew clarke]

I don't know if this fits your criteria, but...

The Wells Road Bypass in Frankston was built in the 1960s, which would later become a section of the Frankston Freeway in the early 1980s.

In 2013 the Frankston Freeway was bypassed by the Frankston Bypass, AKA Peninsula Link.

[James Clarke]

Reopening this thread for a good cause. With the opening of the Wilman Wadani Hwy in Bunbury,  it seems that is bypasses 2 bypasses. Robertson Dr is the Inner Bunbury Bypass and the last 10 or so kms of the Forrest Hwy was originally the Australind Bypass

[Paul0075r]

There are several on the Pacific Hwy, but there's also a few along other routes too, including NR1 in Mandurah and Bunbury in WA.

[Robbie Wales]

I know of one. The Craigieburn bypass. Craigieburn was bypassed by the Hume Freeway in the late 1970s I think as part of the duplication of the Hume Highway.

Another bypass of Craigieburn was built in the early 2000s and this one was a freeway bypass and was built from the existing Hume Freeway to the M80 Metropolitan Ring Road

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[Michael Faria]

The Tugun bypass inserted part way along the Tweed Head bypass, making the northern end of the latter redundant. The same is about to happen on the Raymond Terrace bypass.

After Catherine Hill Bay, Urunga was the second town on the Pacific Hwy to have been bypassed – in the early 1930's when the original timber truss bridge was built. All of the ribbon development along that route came later, so it was a bypass in the true sense.

Along the Pacific Hwy north of Hexham there are many sections where there are three generations of alignment along the same road route. I'm not certain on all of them, but here's a list of original alignments where there are four generations: Single Ln and the eastern end of Pembroke Rd, Telegraph Point; Yellow Rock Rd, Urunga; Old Coast Rd, Korora; northern end of Tramway Dr, Woolgoolga; service road along Coral St near Corindi Public School; northern approach to the old Shark Creek bridge; Woombah St, Maclean; and Satinash Cr, Bangalow.

My Gold Coast road history isn't very good but I think Reedy Creek Rd was once part of the Pacific Hwy and would count as a bypassed bypass.

[Qwerty88]

Hi all, found an archived Ozroads interactive map of the NSW Pacific Highway (up to ~2005?). 

It’s interesting because you can see the M1’s evolution, including several “bypasses of bypasses.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20110410210327/http://ozroads.com.au/NSW/Highways/Pacific/main.htm

[davis]

Archived? 

You can just(!) go Ozroads -> NSW -> Highways -> Pacific Highway -> National Route 1 -> Interactive Maps to get there.

[Qwerty88]

ah, yeah the archive is for people who do not have flash / shockwave installed. 

[Michael Faria]

Very cool! That explains why I never found it in all the time I've spent trawling Ozroads. I was thinking of doing something similar but I'm not sure how. 

[davis]

Oh, I see what you mean.

Sam: if you want to generally "restore" these Flash objects on the site, you just need to add:

<script src="https://unpkg.com/@ruffle-rs/ruffle"></script>

As the last thing before  </body>   on any page that contains such an object.

On Tuesday, December 30, 2025 at 2:30:50 PM UTC+11 Qwerty88 wrote:

[Aevion]

Nerang - Broadbeach Road was also part of the Pacific Highway between 1963 and 1976 when the highway was completed to Reedy Creek Road, which was then subsequently part of it between 1976 and 1985. 

[Qwerty88]

Would be cool to do something for the entire national route 1. Noting that would be a huge undertaking to acquire the information and putting into an interactive map. 

[Michael Faria]

... then Tugun–Currumbin Rd 1985-2008. Prior to 1963 was the entirety of the present Gold Coast Hwy the Pacific?

[Michael Faria]

There's Sam's map of the Pacific Hwy and then someone did one of the Hume a few months ago. I'd like to do a very detailed one of the Pacific using every source available, then perhaps extend it. In the flatter and less populated parts of the country away from the east coast however the road histories would be much briefer.

[Aevion]

That's right. The route via Gaven, Nerang and Broadbeach became the Pacific Highway as part of a reclassification of roads on 1 July 1963; I guess this was to provide immediate relief for traffic wishing to bypass Surfers Paradise. At that point, most of the roads south of Nerang were unsealed, and south of Mudgeeraba, it wasn't much more than a dirt track. Once the highway was built along the former rail corridor south of Nerang to Reedy Creek between 1973 and 1976, the highway name was extended along the new road, and the same south of Reedy Creek in 1985. It was a very piecemeal-built 'bypass'.

[AlienChex]

The section of Pacific Highway in Heatherbrae north from the huge roundabout was built in 1998 as a bypass of Raymond terrace. When the M1 extension opens next year it will bypass some of this section, which should turn it into quite a ghost road (only heatherbrae traffic would use it)

[Michael Faria]

Two on the Newell Hwy: the recent Parkes bypass replacing what appears to have been a deviation in the town to avoid the main street but which introduced a pair of unpleasant dog-legs in the route, and the 2010's deviation replacing the narrow overpass over the abandoned The Rock–Oaklands Railway on the 1960's Morundah deviation, obliterating part of the track.

[Ethan “CainNKalos” Barrow]

This just sparked a memory for me!! My Grandma gave me an old map of the Gold Coast, and it always baffled me why Nerang-Broadbeach Rd was marked NR1, when it never looked like it had been part of the Pacific to begin with! I had always believed/known that Reedy Creek Rd was part of the old Pacific - just it's interchange design *screams* 'old bypass connection'.

(here it is, hopefully in good quality)

[Sam L]

Thanks Davis, I really should do this. The maps are too useful to not have that functionality available.

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[Paul0075r]

Easy to do, with a simple search and replace and then reupload the new files. If you want a hand with this let me know.

[Michael Faria]

The section of the Gold Coast Hwy at Surfers Paradise where the carriageways were a block apart is interesting. It's good because it allows the lights to by synchronised in both directions so you have improved capacity and travel time, but they got rid of it to put the tram in.