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Sturt Highway is an Australian national highway in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. It is an important Road transport for the transport of passengers and freight between Sydney and Adelaide and the regions along the route.
Initially an amalgam of , the Sturt Highway was proclaimed a state highway in NSW in 1933. In 1955, the route was allocated a National Route number (20). It was included in the National Highway system in 1992, forming the Sydney-Adelaide Link. Sturt Highway is allocated as route A20 for its entire length, the majority of which is a single carriageway, and freeway standard and 6-lane arterial road standard towards its western terminus in Gawler.
The eastern terminus of Sturt Highway is at a road junction with Hume Highway at Tarcutta, near Gundagai. Heading west, the highway passes through the city of Wagga Wagga and the towns of Narrandera, Darlington Point, Hay, Balranald, and Euston, leaving New South Wales by crossing the Murray River into Victoria from Buronga to Mildura. The highway continues more or less due west through the northwest of Victoria before entering South Australia. In South Australia, Sturt Highway passes Renmark, Monash, Barmera, Waikerie, Blanchetown and Nuriootpa, before reaching its western terminus at the interchange with Gawler Bypass and Northern Expressway on the outskirts of Gawler.
The route used by coaches between Wagga Wagga and the South Australian border as late as 1914 ran along the northern bank of the Murrumbidgee to Darlington Point – a bridge was built across the river in 1905, replacing a punt service operating from 1886 – and then continued along the river's southern bank to Hay, crossing the river again (a bridge in Hay was opened in 1874 by Sir Henry Parkes, replacing a ferry service operating since the 1850s). The route then travelled the northern side of the Murrumbidgee through Maude and Balranald and onwards to Adelaide. By 1919 the route from Hay had been altered to travel the river's southern bank to Maude, before departing the water course for a more-direct route to Balranald, crossing the river there by a bridge opened in 1876. By 1928, the route had shifted south of the Murrumbidgee River between Tarcutta and Narrandera.
The passing of the Main Roads Act of 1924 State of New South Wales, An Act to provide for the better construction, maintenance, and financing of main roads; to provide for developmental roads; to constitute a Main Roads Board 10 November 1924 through the Parliament of New South Wales provided for the declaration of Main Roads, roads partially funded by the State government through the Main Roads Board (later Transport for NSW). Main Road No. 4 was declared along this road from the intersection with Hume Highway from Lower Tarcutta to Wagga Wagga (and continuing eastwards via Tumut, Adaminaby, Cooma, and Bega to Tathra) as part of Monaro Highway, Main Road No. 6 was declared from Balranald via Euston and Wentworth to the state border with South Australia (and continuing eastwards via Oxley, Booligal, Gunbar, Rankins Springs, Wyalong and Cowra to Bathurst) as part of Mid-Western Highway, and Main Road No. 58 was declared from Hay via Narranderra to Wagga Wagga (and continuing westwards via Maude to Oxley), on the same day, 8 August 1928. With the passing of the Main Roads (Amendment) Act of 1929 State of New South Wales, An Act to amend the Main Roads Act, 1924-1927; to confer certain further powers upon the Main Roads Board; to amend the Local Government Act, 1919, and certain other Acts; to validate certain payments and other matters; and for purposes connected therewith. 8 April 1929 to provide for additional declarations of State Highways and Trunk Roads, these were amended to State Highways 4 and 6 and Trunk Road 58 on 8 April 1929.
Mid-Western Highway was rerouted between Gunbar and Balranald to pass through Hay, and the western end of Trunk Road 58 was truncated to meet it at Hay, on 24 September 1929. The route of the main road from Narrandera to Darlington Point had shifted to the southern side of the river at this stage, thus following the present route east from Balranald. On 16 September 1930, the road between Wagga Wagga and Hay (Trunk Road 58) was named Sturt Trunk Road, in honour of Captain Charles Sturt who explored the area a century earlier and opened it up for agriculture.
The Department of Main Roads, which had succeeded the MRB in the previous year, declared Sturt Highway as State Highway 14 on 8 August 1933, from the intersection with Hume Highway at Lower Tarcutta via Wagga Wagga, Hay, Balranald, Euston and Wentworth to the state border with South Australia, subsuming the existing portions of Monaro Highway (State Highway 4) between Wagga Wagga and Lower Tarcutta, Sturt Trunk Road (Trunk Road 58) from Wagga Wagga to Hay, and Mid-Western Highway (State Highway 6) from Hay to the state border with South Australia. eventually to Adelaide via Renmark; the western end of Monaro Highway (today Snowy Mountains Highway) was truncated to meet Hume Highway in Tarcutta, and the western end of Mid-Western Highway was truncated to meet Sturt Highway in Hay, as a result. On 1 July 1938, the South Australian government decreed "the road from Gawler through Blanchetown to the border beyond Renmark will be known as the Sturt Highway", to join with the same road in New South Wales.
In 1939, Sturt Highway was rerouted to run via Mildura, using the former alignment of Murray Valley Highway, to make it the most direct route to Adelaide. Murray Valley Highway had been constructed in 1927 to provide a shorter, all-weather road connection between Mildura and Renmark, and was declared a State Highway by the Country Roads Board of Victoria in September 1932.
Sturt Highway was signed National Route 20 across its entire length in 1955. The Whitlam government introduced the federal National Roads Act 1974, where roads declared as a National Highway were still the responsibility of the states for road construction and maintenance, but were fully compensated by the Federal government for money spent on approved projects. As an important interstate link between the capitals of New South Wales and South Australia, Sturt Highway was declared a National Highway in 1992. With all three states' conversion to their newer alphanumeric systems between the late 1990s to the early 2010s, its former route number was updated to A20 for the highway within Victoria (in 1997), South Australia (in 1998), and eventually the New South Wales section (in 2013).
The passing of the Roads Act of 1993 State of New South Wales, An Act to make provision with respect to the roads of New South Wales; to repeal the State Roads Act 1986, the Crown and Other Roads Act 1990 and certain other enactments; and for other purposes. 10 November 1924 through the Parliament of New South Wales updated road classifications and the way they could be declared within New South Wales. Under this act, Sturt Highway today retains its declaration as Highway 14, from the intersection with Hume Highway north of Tarcutta to the bridge over the Murray River at Mildura.
The passing of the Road Management Act 2004 through the Parliament of Victoria granted the responsibility of overall management and development of Victoria's major arterial roads to VicRoads: in 2004, VicRoads re-declared Sturt Highway (Arterial #6610) from the border with South Australia at Murray-Sunset to the border with New South Wales in Mildura.
Northern Expressway was built at the south-western end of Sturt Highway, as part of an AusLink/Government of South Australia project to build a new freeway-standard road, as part of the North–South Corridor project, providing better access for road transport to Port Adelaide and the industrial areas west and northwest of Adelaide.
Other projects in South Australia include a number of passing lane added in the 2000s and 2010s to help make it safer with the high volume of traffic. Major 'S'-bend curves near Waikerie were realigned, and further upgrades to the road were performed up to 2012.
When the Northern Expressway and Northern Connector were assigned as route M2, route A20 reverted to following Main North Road south to Gepps Cross.
To the west and south-west, Sturt Highway crosses the Murray four times:
The bridge at Blanchetown was originally opened in 1964. It replaced cable ferries, and was itself replaced in 1998 in response to concern about its ability to continue to carry B-double trucks. The bridge at Kingston On Murray was opened in 1973, also replacing a very busy ferry crossing.
Victoria
New South Wales
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