Tumbarumba locals call for urgent repairs to fix 'unsafe' roads

Australia Broadcast Center

04-08-2025

The NSW government has released a new interactive map identifying the most unsafe roads across the state, but it is not telling Tumbarumba residents anything they did not already know.
All four roads leading to and from the town, 110 kilometres south-east of Wagga Wagga, were given a rating of one out of five stars.
That means the Snowy Mountains Highway, Batlow Road, Tumbarumba Road and Jingellic Road were among the least safe in the state.
Tumbarumba Chamber of Commerce chair Maria Anderson said she was not particularly surprised by the poor ratings.
"Some of the roads have probably never been properly upgraded or widened, and when we have so many trucks … there's not much room for error," she said.
Ms Anderson said the roads were important for access to essential services and employment.
"The Wagga road in particular is critical, it's probably our main thoroughfare," she said.
Ms Anderson has been campaigning for years for improvements to the local road network and said she was especially concerned about a 10km stretch adjoining the Hume Highway.
"It's a horrendous stretch of road and it's shared by a large variety of people, including B-double log trucks, ambulances, school buses and the general public," she said.
New South Wales is the first jurisdiction to map its state and regional road network to show safety star ratings under the Australian Road Assessment Program (AusRAP).
Roads are rated from one to five stars, with five being the safest, based on road characteristics, traffic volumes and safety infrastructure.
The map has given many state roads in southern NSW a rating of one, particularly those in the Snowy Valleys, a region where 13 people have died on the roads since 2019.
In one of these incidents, on the Tumbarumba Road, a driver was killed in a fiery two-truck crash in 2023.
The Snowy Valleys Council director of infrastructure and works Duncan Mitchell said the Tumbarumba Road was due for "urgent" repairs that must be prioritised in the "next 12 months".
He agreed with the NSW government report that the Batlow, Jingellic and Tooma Roads leading out of Tumbarumba were also in need of repair.
"It would be great to see funding put into [those roads] … in the next one to two years."
Mr Mitchell said the region's challenging topography made road maintenance difficult and expensive.
Minister for Roads Jenny Aitchison said the new interactive map would be the government's blueprint for prioritising future upgrades.
"The purpose of the map is to really establish transparently … which road do we need to invest in to get them up to a standard that means we will reach our target," she said.
Transport for NSW announced $500,000 in funding for its latest round of the Community Road Safety Grants Program.
Not-for-profit and charity organisations can apply for grants of up to $30,000 to fund local road safety initiatives.
Ms Aitchison said the government wanted 80 per cent of road travel in NSW to be on roads that were rated at least three stars.
She said that figure was currently at 71 per cent.
Australian Road Safety Foundation chair Russell White said he feared the road toll would increase in NSW, if there was not an increase in government funding.
Mr White said road conditions were a "major contributor" to fatalities.
So far this year, 214 people have died on the state's roads, compared to 187 this time last year.
Meanwhile, 74 people were seriously injured in the Snowy Valleys LGA between 2019 and 2023, and 95 suffered moderate injuries.
Ms Aitchison said she recognised the state of some roads in the Snowy Valleys was concerning, but that the map had put "the transparency back into road funding".
"So we are able to show that we actually can make a difference here."