Rural Road Infrastructure in Barwon/Australia: Why It Matters on a State and National Level

For starters, rural road quality directly affects a lot of people. Rural areas, loosely defined as regions outside of urban areas with a population of 2,500 or more.

One issue at hand is road safety. Even though populations in rural areas are less dense, the fatality rate is twice as high in rural areas than urban areas. The higher fatality rate from vehicle accidents is due to longer emergency response times, higher travel speeds compared to urban roads, and poor or inconsistent roadway design and maintenance. Since rural roads aren't constructed, maintained, or refurbished as often as urban roads, there can be dangerous inconsistencies between multiple lane-miles in one trip. Things like shoulder clearance, lane width, and surface treatment can all vary, leading drivers into unexpected driving conditions in the blink of an eye.

Well maintained rural roads are also important in supporting the vitality of local communities. Rural quality of life is affected by factors such as the ability to interact and collaborate with nearby regions, and accessibility to public gathering places, work, schools, and recreational activities. Reliable transportation routes are also imperative for rural economies. In contrast to urban economies, Australia's rural economy is more dependent on goods production and service oriented jobs, which are often jobs that can't be done from home. Good roads allow people to get to and from work, freight vehicles to transport goods, and encourage more people to live and work in the area.

"The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is certain or unchangeable".

Rural roads provide access to countless travel destinations across the "Oz". A good portion of the Australian tourism industry relies on rural road networks to access places like national parks etc.

But even if you never leave your urban bubble, rural road quality still greatly impacts everyday life. An effective transportation system supports rural economies, reducing the prices farmers pay for inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, raising the value of their crops and greatly increasing market access. Rural roads also allow for farming in locations further from the markets where product is bought and sold, meaning farms can take advantage of favorable soil and climate in more remote locations while still being able to transport goods back and forth. All of these factors ultimately mean that better roads lead to cheaper food prices for consumers around the nation. The same goes for other industries that require freight transportation to and from rural areas.

Industries would be more heavily represented in rural areas, including construction, manufacturing, and public administration. Rural transportation accessibility and connectivity are critical to transportation dependent business sectors, including the growing energy production and extraction sectors, advanced manufacturing, and tourism. Many jobs located in urban areas also depend on economic input from rural communities.

Infrastructure investment must go beyond our nation's major cities, and be made in Barwon/Australia's rural communities where our food, fibre is produced. To grow back our manufacturing sector that we once enjoyed...manufacturers depend on the roads, bridges, and highways in rural Barwon/Australia to supply the newly produced equipment that our new future economy relies on and that infrastructure is in desperate need of repair and modernisation.

Overall, rural road quality both directly and indirectly affects the entire nation. Funding for large-scale improvements to the Barwon electorate's roadway system is definitely needed, but government's efforts to maintain and repair rural roads are undoubtedly not helpful and fall desperately short of the mark.

Since funding for rural roads is often covered by government subsidies to local councils, making smart decisions by these council's in pavement preservation is also imperative, because building better roads, and working hard to maintain existing road infrastructure, shows a commitment to growth and success on both a regional and national level...

...And I don't think that this commitment from both sides of the political divide in NSW has been there for decades and nor will it be, it is just election talk and "Hot Air" , if elected, I need to change this...waiting ten years to fix our road networks throughout the Barwon from major damage caused by this recent 2022 flood, or any other flood for that matter, to only wait for the next flood, and then to say the same thing...is absolutely unacceptable.