The Queensland government is vowing to get on top of more than eight billion dollars in maintenance and renewal works needed on the state's roads. The transport minister acknowledges more needs to be done to maintain existing assets.
00:00Taylor Connelly's business runs 26 Prime Movers across rural and regional Queensland.
00:07When you leave here, you just want to head up the road up to high range.
00:12She's very familiar with the state of the roads.
00:15So what we're finding is that a lot of the roads in far north Queensland especially are continuing to deteriorate.
00:22With drives like this, vehicle maintenance can be a big expense.
00:28Our bonnets are fiberglass so any sort of corrugation or shaking will create damage there.
00:35There's obviously suspension as well which on some of the rougher roads in Queensland we do see quite a lot of damage too.
00:41Keeping trucks roadworthy is a must for the company.
00:44There doesn't appear to be the same requirement statewide for the government to provide us with roads that are safe to travel on for our vehicles.
00:53The RACQ says its members are constantly complaining about poor road surfaces.
00:59What that does is cause damage to tyres, suspensions, windscreens, all adding to cost of travelling on Queensland roads.
01:08Every year the Department of Transport and Main Roads calculates the cost of what it calls capital renewal investment needs.
01:16It takes into account the rehabilitation, resealing and resurfacing of road pavements as well as structures such as bridges.
01:24As of 12 months ago there was $8.6 billion in outstanding renewal and maintenance works.
01:30About $800 million more than the year before.
01:34It's road users who pay the price so they pay the price through either greater congestion or they pay the price through vehicle damage.
01:41That's the reality of these maintenance backlogs.
01:44The Transport Minister says the State needs to do better maintaining existing assets.
01:50Politicians love building new things and it's important that we do build new infrastructure.
01:54But it's really important that we maintain what we have as well.
01:57RACQ surveys of members support that.
02:01Our members are less interested in shiny and new.
02:04The length of impacted road has reduced in recent years but Brent Mickleberg has vowed to get on top of the growing cost of outstanding works.
02:13My task is to stabilise that increase year on year and then hopefully start to turn the curve and reduce the backlog over time.
02:20We'd like to see roadworthy roads for roadworthy vehicles.
