The Pacific Motorway is a motorway in Australia between Brisbane, Queensland, and Brunswick Heads, New South Wales, through the New South Wales–Queensland border at Tweed Heads. The motorway starts at Coronation Drive at Milton in Brisbane, The Brisbane city section of the motorway is often referred to by its former name, the Riverside Expressway. The motorway is about 150 km long, and features eight traffic lanes with a 110 km/h speed limit between the M6 Logan Motorway at Loganholme and State Route 10 Smith Street Motorway at Gaven and generally six or four lanes at 100 km/h on other sections. The motorway passes through the major tourist region of the Gold Coast, the destination for most of the vehicular traffic from Brisbane. More than a $2 billion was spent on the motorway between 1990 and 1998, including widening the road and safety measures. The motorway passes Gold Coast attractions such as Warner Bros. Movie World, Wet'n'Wild Water World at Oxenford, and Dreamworld in Coomera, which are among the most popular theme parks in Australia. Since 2008 the motorway connects with the Tweed Heads bypass in New South Wales. There are also plans to progressively widen the four lane section from Nerang to Tugun to six lanes. The first section of this upgrade (Nerang to Varsity Lakes) was completed in May 2012. Planning is ongoing for the remaining section of the upgrade (Varsity Lakes to Tugun). The highest point of the motorway is 92 m on a cutting 130 km south of Brisbane (between Cudgera Creek Rd and Sleepy Hollow Rest Area).

History

Queensland section

The first section, opened in Brisbane in November 1972, was originally known as the Southeast Freeway. It included the Riverside Expressway which was designed to alleviate traffic congestion in central Brisbane. The first segment reached south to Greenslopes, then to Upper Mt Gravatt by 1982. The Southeast Freeway was connected to the Pacific Highway at Springwood by 1985. The Southeast Freeway was designated originally as the F3, but this nomenclature was removed in 1994. On 15 April 1996 it was announced that the Pacific Highway between the Logan Motorway interchange at Loganholme and Nerang would be upgraded to motorway standard. From the Albert River at Beenleigh to Coombabah Creek at Gaven, about 28 km, the road surface is portland cement concrete. The upgraded road was opened to the public in October 2000. In March 2006, the Queensland Government released planning for substantial changes to the section between Springwood and Daisy Hill, mainly at the entrances and exits along the section to deal with substantial traffic problems on surrounding streets and traffic backups onto the motorway. The planned upgrade led to some popular protest, mainly by people whose homes would be resumed for the project. Construction of the upgrade commenced in November 2009 and was completed in November 2012. The Tugun Bypass was completed in 2008. It has four lanes (two in each direction in 2008 and provision for six lane widening in the future). Widening from four lanes to six lanes is planned for 2025. Below is an overview of when each construction project on the highway (later motorway) was completed (from earliest to latest):

Queensland Upgrade Projects

New South Wales section

The NSW section of the Pacific Motorway to is part of the Pacific Highway upgrade from the Queensland border to Ballina. It was renamed to Pacific Motorway from Pacific Highway in February 2013. The motorway's first stage was completed in July 1985 with the opening of the first stage of the Tweed Heads Bypass, followed by the second stage in November 1992. Over the next 20 years, sections of the motorway progressively opened to traffic, until the final section, the Banora Point upgrade, opened in September 2012. For more comprehensive information on this section of motorway, see the Ozroads website. Below is an overview of when each stage of the motorway was completed (from south to north):

Service centres

The Pacific Motorway, when it was upgraded in September 2000, was the first motorway in Queensland to have service centres integrated. There are two service centres, Stapylton servicing southbound traffic, and Coomera servicing northbound traffic. The travel centres include fuel and fast-food restaurants, picnic areas and a shop. Solar panels on the roofs of the centres provide power to the facilities.

Speed limits

Speed cameras

There is a fixed speed camera on the Pacific Motorway at Tarragindi, facing northbound. There is another at Loganholme just after the Logan Motorway exit facing northbound. A third set of speed cameras, situated on the northbound side of the motorway at the Smith Street overpass at Gaven, became active around March 2013.

Major settlements

Gold Coast

Yatala to Coolangatta is within the City of Gold Coast. The city has a population of 500,000 and is Australia's sixth-largest city. The oceanside parts of the Gold Coast are characterised by high-rises, residential canal developments, a casino, theme parks, amusement parks and numerous tourist attractions, whilst its inland suburbs are leafy and well kept, looking much like the newer suburbia of other large Australian cities. The Gold Coast attracts tourists from around the world and is one of Australia's leading tourist destinations. Most of the city is bypassed by the Pacific Motorway (M1 Motorway) which continues from Metroad 3 at Logan City south of Brisbane. The former route of the Pacific Highway through the Gold Coast has been renamed as the Gold Coast Highway. The Pacific Highway was very congested between Tugun and Bilinga until the Tugun Bypass opened in June 2008 bypassing the old highway. The bypassed section was renamed Gold Coast Highway.

Tweed Heads

The highway crosses the Tweed River south of Banora Point. Tweed Heads is the major commercial centre of the southern part of the Gold Coast, which extends as far south as Crabbes Creek in New South Wales. It was known as a "twin town" along with Coolangatta, Queensland before they coalesced with other towns to form the suburbia of the Gold Coast. The Tweed River valley contains the Cudgen Road Tunnel completed in 2002. The tunnel was built to avoid the visual impact of a road cutting.

Interchanges

New South Wales

Queensland