Berry bypass ahead of schedule

The vital Berry section of the $580 million Foxground and Berry bypass is expected to open ahead of schedule before Christmas this year, Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced when inspecting the site today with Member for Kiama Gareth Ward.

Ms Berejiklian said the Berry bypass would be completed six months early and would include the completion of the 610 metre bridge at Berry, allowing highway motorists to bypass the Berry township completely.

“This upgrade gives the people of Berry back their town and will also be a huge boost to improving road safety and travel times for motorists,” she said.

“Since the first sod was turned just over two years ago remarkable progress has been made and by Christmas this year motorists will be travelling on around 10 kilometres of new highway with two lanes in each direction.”

The 12.5 kilometre upgrade will improve safety and travel time for the 19,400 motorists travelling on the highway daily and is expected to save up to seven minutes travel time, reduce crashes by about 64 per cent and improve safety of Berry’s pedestrians.

Member for Kiama Gareth Ward said the upgrade would improve travel times for holiday motorists travelling on the South Coast and remove highway traffic from the main street through Berry.

“One of the reasons I stood for Parliament was to fix the Princes Highway and I couldn’t be prouder to be working with her to deliver record spends on infrastructure our community needs,” Mr Ward said.

Mr Ward said the Foxground bypass section, another key component of the upgrade, will be completed and open to highway motorists before Easter this year.

“The five kilometre Foxground bypass, between Toolijooa Road and Austral Park Road, will be opened to traffic in time for the Easter holidays,” he said.

“This means motorists will be able to travel on the two lane divided highway for five kilometres in both directions bypassing the Foxground bends.”