Wimmera Highway is a 345 kilometre rural highway that runs predominately through the Wimmera region of western Victoria, after which the highway is named. It links the towns of Marong, Victoria, just to the west of the major regional centre of Bendigo in Victoria, and Naracoorte, in the south-eastern corner of South Australia.[6]
Route
Wimmera Highway commences at the intersection with Calder Alternative Highway in Marong and heads in a westerly direction as a two-lane, single carriageway rural highway to Newbridge, where it crosses the Loddon River, and continues westwards until it meets Sunraysia Highway in St Arnaud. It continues west through Rupanyup until it reaches Henty Highway in Dooen, where it forms a concurrency with it and heads southwest into the regional city of Horsham, where it meets Western Highway. It continues in a south-westerly direction on its own alignment through Edenhope, before it crosses the interstate border into South Australia and eventually terminates at the intersection with Riddoch Highway in Naracoorte.
History
The passing of the Country Roads Act of 1912[7] through the Parliament of Victoria provided for the establishment of the Country Roads Board (later VicRoads) and their ability to declare Main Roads, taking responsibility for the management, construction and care of the state's major roads from local municipalities. Horsham-Natimuk(-Edenhope) Road from Horsham to the southern end of Karnak, Edenhope-Goroke Road from the southern end of Karnak to Edenhope (and continuing north to Goroke), and Hamilton-Edenhope-Aspley Road from Edenhope through Aspley to the South Australian border (and continuing east to Harrow), were declared Main Roads on 17 March 1915;[1] and Rupanyup–Murtoa Road between Rupanyup to Murtoa was declared a Main Road on 28 May 1915.[8]
The passing of the Highways and Vehicles Act of 1924[9] provided for the declaration of State Highways, roads two-thirds financed by the State government through the Country Roads Board. Wimmera Highway was declared a State Highway in the 1959/60 financial year,[2] from St Arnaud via Rupanyup, Horsham and Edenhope to the South Australian border (for a total of 146 miles), subsuming the original declarations of Rupanyup–Murtoa Road, Horsham-Natimuk-Edenhope Road, Edenhope-Goroke Road (between Karnak and Edenhope) and Hamilton-Edenhope-Aspley Road (between Edenhope and the SA border) as Main Roads; before this declaration, these roads were also referred to as Horsham–Murtoa Road, Marnoo–St Arnaud Road and Navarre Road.[2] The highway was extended a further 90km east (along the former Bendigo–St Arnaud Road[10]) to Marong, just outside Bendigo, in the late 1990s.
A new bridge over Loddon River in Newbridge (on the then-Bendigo-St Arnaud Road) was opened in 1996, replacing an older, flood-prone structure that could no longer be maintained in a cost-effective manner, at a cost of $1.4 million.[10]
Wimmera Highway was signed as State Route 130 between Naracoorte and St Arnaud in 1986; with Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s, this was replaced by route C240 between Naracoorte and Marong. Subsequent road upgrades allowed the Victorian section to be reallocated route B240 in 2003.
The passing of the Road Management Act 2004[11] granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared the road as Wimmera Highway (Arterial #6110), beginning at the South Australian border and ending at Calder Alternative Highway in Marong.[6]
^State Government of Victoria. "Road Management Act 2004"(PDF). Government of Victoria. Archived(PDF) from the original on 18 October 2021. Retrieved 19 October 2021.
