Kuranda Range Road safety and resilience upgrades

The department is working with the Australian Government to investigate and prioritise safety and resilience upgrades for Kuranda Range Road.

The upgrades aim to reduce the number and duration of road closures on Kuranda Range Road, improving travel time and trip reliability for all road users, including heavy vehicles.

Benefits

Improves safety
Improves network efficiency
Contributes to regional growth
Improves ride quality

Key features

We expect the program to include the following upgrades at key locations on Kuranda Range Road:

protective barriers and guardrail
shoulder widening
wide centre line treatment
intelligent transport systems
slope stability treatments
vegetation management
turnaround areas.

Funding

This project is jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland governments on an 80:20 basis, as published in the Queensland Transport and Roads Investment Program, 2024-25 to 2027-28. Investment ID: 2713515

Total investment: ^$262.5 million

Australian Government: ^$210 million

Queensland Government: ^$52.5 million

Current Status

Kuranda Range Road experienced numerous major landslips and road damage caused by Ex-Tropical Cyclone Jasper in December 2023. Our priority on Kuranda Range Road is to carry out repair and recovery works.

The recovery works are jointly funded by the Australian and Queensland Governments through the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.

In the meantime, we are developing a Kuranda Range Road Upgrade Strategy to determine and prioritise suitable treatments to improve safety and resilience.

Construction of safety and resilience treatment is expected to start after the recovery works are completed.

Cairns to Northern Tablelands Access Strategy

Safety and resilience upgrades to Kuranda Range Road were a key recommendation of the Cairns to Northern Tablelands Access Strategy. Completed in 2021, the Access Strategy looked at the 4 key routes between the coast and the Tablelands, including Kuranda Range Road, in terms of capacity, reliability, and transport efficiency.

The study identified that while there are reliability challenges, demand does not exceed capacity for any of the existing corridors and subsequently there was no clear technical justification for major capacity upgrades or construction of a new road.