Oxley Highway Project Completed
13 December 2011 - Whilst rain has delayed the opening of the main carriageway of the recently upgraded Oxley Highway until January 24th, the weather didn't stop the local Port Macquarie community from celebrating the completed project.
At the Lindfield Park road area, the major road was transformed into a carnival on Friday, 9 December, with market stalls, face painting, indigenous dancing, sky divers and a classic car parade.
The celebration gave the community a once-only sneak peak at the upgraded highway before it opens to traffic next year, when it will provide commuters with faster travel times and improved road safety.
Five parachutists started the festivities with their grand entrance at 6pm, followed by a parade of antique, vintage, classis and heritage cars as well as trucks, Hummers and, of course, Santa Claus.
Kids enjoyed the three jumping castles on site, face painting and balloon art as well as the range of plant and machinery donated by BMD for the evening.
The Oxley Highway upgrade commenced in January 2010 and involved
- 400,000m3 of earthworks;
- 110,000m2 of continuously reinforced concrete pavement with steel fibre reinforced concrete pavement on two roundabouts;
- 3 x single span Super-T bridges;
- 4m high prestressed concrete noise barriers;
- 13 x large box culvert drainage and fauna underpasses;
- Landscaping disturbed areas including hydromulching and planting of 90,000 plants; and
- Street lighting.
The project is bound by an Environmental Protection Licence with the NSW EPA as the alignment traversed floodplain, swamps and heavy growth forests. Up to 40 threatened flora and fauna species are present in this area with the majority on or near the works area.
For more information, please visit the RTA project website.
