Adelaide–Crafers Highway
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Adelaide–Crafers Highway
| Adelaide-Crafers Highway | |
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| The highway viewed near the eastern portal of the Heysen Tunnels | |
| Length | 10 km (6 mi) |
| Direction | West-East |
| From |  Glen Osmond Road, Glen Osmond, Adelaide |
| Major suburbs | Mount Osmond |
| To | South Eastern Freeway, Crafers, Adelaide |
| Allocation | National Route M1 |
| Major junctions |  Cross Road Portrush RoadMount Barker Road for full list see exits and intersections. |
The Adelaide-Crafers Highway is a 10 kilometre controlled-access highway linking Adelaide city centre to Crafers in the Adelaide hills, and continuing from Crafers as the South Eastern Freeway. The highway is ten kilometres long, including 500 metre long twin-tube tunnels (the Heysen Tunnels), the first of their kind on the National Highway. The road is signed as the Princes Highway for its entire route from Glen Osmond Road to the South Eastern Freeway. It is designated as the M1.
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History
The Adelaide-Crafers Highway came as a much-needed upgrade and replacement to the previous link road, the Mount Barker Road,[1] which had been contoured to the Adelaide Hills, giving rise to many steep turns, ascending a tortuous route. The tightest hairpin turn on the Mount Barker Road became infamous as 'the Devils Elbow', often the site of car and semi-trailer accidents.
On 16 May 1995, Prime Minister Paul Keating announced the construction of the new freeway. The Heysen Tunnels, named after well-known South Australian artist and benefactor Hans Heysen, were completed in 1998. Construction was completed early 2000 and on 5 May 2000 Prime Minister John Howard opened the new road.[2] It was the largest South Australian road project, costing a total of A$151 million, wholly funded by the Australian Federal Government.
Structure
The Adelaide-Crafers Highway features 6 lanes of traffic, arrester beds and concrete median barriers, with street lighting through all 10 km.
Road safety
Shortly after the Adelaide-Crafers Freeway opened, several incidents involving semi-trailers drew media attention to the road: particularly after a high-profile media identity was involved in a near-fatal accident with a semi-trailer.[citation needed] While the previous Mount Barker Road was a notorious stretch, its dangers were well known - the new freeway presented the new challenge of a sustained continuous gradient. Heavy vehicles with inadequate braking found it hard to slow down once they had exceeded a certain speed. It took some time, and the addition of several warning signs prior to the descent, for heavy vehicles to become familiar with the freeway's characteristics. Semi-trailers can been seen travelling as slow as 20-30km/h downhill. In 2005 changeable electronic road signs were installed every 200 metres, so that the speed limit of the road can be adjusted from Transport SA headquarters in Adelaide. This has both improved safety for commuters, and emergency service workers like the Country Fire Service.
In 2011, after several recent incidents involving trucks having problems successfully braking down the hill, one of which going into a bus stop, and another going straight through the intersection at the bottom, the government added new laws that any vehicle with 5 axles or more must stay in the left lane and must not exceed a 60km/h limit from the interchance at Crafers to the old tollhouse. Safety cameras are installed in an attempt to ensure trucks abide by this new limit.
Additional signs for the two arrester beds on the descent have also been added, to encourage out of control drivers to use them as a safer alternative.
Exits and intersections
| Adelaide-Crafers Highway Princes Highway |
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Eastbound exits  or Intersections  |
Distance from South Eastern Freeway (km) |
Distance from Glen Osmond Road (km) |
Westbound exits or Intersections |
| Start Adelaide-Crafers Highway from Glen Osmond Road |
10 | 0 | End Adelaide-Crafers Highway continues as Glen Osmond Road to Adelaide city centre |
| Glen Osmond Portrush Road Cross Road |
Glen Osmond Portrush Road Cross Road |
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| Mount Osmond Mount Osmond Road |
8 | 2 | Mount Osmond Mount Osmond Road |
| Eagle On The Hill Devil's Elbow Mount Barker Road |
6 | -- | no exit |
| HEYSEN TUNNEL Up Track |
-- | -- | HEYSEN TUNNEL Down Track |
| no exit | 0 | 10 | Eagle on the Hill Mount Barker Road |
| End Adelaide-Crafers Highway continues as South Eastern Freeway to Murray Bridge / Melbourne |
Start Adelaide-Crafers Highway from South Eastern Freeway |
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Map
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Adelaide-Crafers Highway |
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Gallery
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Portal of the Heysen tunnel on the revamped freeway.
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Driving towards Murray Bridge on Adelaide-Crafers Highway.
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Adelaide-Crafers Highway on a foggy day.
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Adelaide-Crafers Highway at Crafers.
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Eagle on the Hill is directly above the tunnel entrance, with the old road winding round from Devil's Elbow.
See also
- Highway 1 (Australia)
- A1 highway (South Australia)
- South Eastern Freeway
- Highways in Australia
- List of highways in South Australia
- Freeways in Australia
- Freeways in South Australia
- Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study
References
- ^ "Old and New Road Names". City of Burnside. 8 March 2006. http://www.burnside.sa.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=756. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
- ^ "The Adelaide Crafers Highway Project". Government of South Australia, Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure. 13 August 2004. Archived from the original on 2007-08-29. http://web.archive.org/web/20070829201957/http://www.transport.sa.gov.au/transport_network/projects/adel_crafers/index.asp. Retrieved 2007-07-14.
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