Adelaide-Crafers Highway

Infobox Australian Road
road_name = Adelaide-Crafers Highway
route_

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route_

route_

photo =
caption =
length = 10
direction = West-East
start =
finish = "'
est = 2000
through = Mt. Osmond
route =
exits = Portrush Road
Mount Barker Road (Princes Highway)

The Adelaide-Crafers Highway is a 10 kilometre freeway-grade road linking Adelaide to Crafers in the Adelaide hills, and continuing from Crafers as the South Eastern Freeway. The highway is ten kilometres long, including 500 metre long twin-tube tunnels (the Heysen Tunnels), the first of their kind on the National Highway. It is designated as the M1

History

The Adelaide-Crafers Highway came as a much-needed upgrade and replacement to the previous link road, the Mount Barker Roadcite web |url=http://www.burnside.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=756 |title=Old and New Road Names |publisher=City of Burnside |accessdate=2007-07-14 |date=8 March 2006] , which had been contoured to the Adelaide Hills, giving rise to many steep turns, ascending a tortuous route. The tightest hairpin turn on the Mount Barker Road became infamous as 'the Devils Elbow', often the site of car and semi-trailer accidents.

On May 16, 1995 Prime Minister Paul Keating announced the construction of the new freeway. The Heysen Tunnels, named after well-known South Australian artist and benefactor Hans Heysen, were completed in 1998. Construction was completed early 2000 and on 5 May 2000 Prime Minister John Howard opened the new road.cite web |title=The Adelaide Crafers Highway Project |url=http://www.transport.sa.gov.au/transport_network/projects/adel_crafers/index.asp |date=13 August 2004 |publisher=Government of South Australia, Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure |accessdate=2007-07-14] It was the largest South Australian road project, costing a total of A$151 million, wholly funded by the Australian Federal Government.

tructure

The Adelaide-Crafers Highway features 6 lanes of traffic, arrester beds, concrete median barriers, with street lighting through all 10 km.

Exits and Intersections

Road safety

Shortly after the Adelaide-Crafers Freeway opened, several incidents involving semi-trailers drew media attention to the road: particularly after a high-profile media identity was involved in a near-fatal accident with a semi-trailer Fact|date=May 2007. While the previous Mount Barker Road was a notorious stretch, its dangers were well known - the new freeway presented the new challenge of a sustained continuous gradient. Heavy vehicles with inadequate braking found it hard to slow down once they had exceeded a certain speed. It took some time, and the addition of several warning signs prior to the descent, for heavy vehicles to become familiar with the freeway's characteristics. Semi-trailers can been seen travelling as slow as 20-30km/h downhill. In 2005 changeable electronic road signs were installed every 200 metres, so that the speed limit of the road can be adjusted from Transport SA headquarters in Adelaide. This has both improved safety for commuters, and emergency service workers like the Country Fire Service.

Gallery

ee also

*South Eastern Freeway
*Highways in Australia
*List of highways in South Australia
*Freeways in Australia
*Freeways in South Australia

References