Tourism and Business Impact of the Bruthen Alternate Route, East Gippsland

As part of its improvement program on the Princes Highway through Gippsland, VicRoads is upgrading the A500/B620 from Bairnsdale to Nowa Nowa via Bruthen to provide an alternative route for through traffic. This route avoids Lakes Entrance, which is a choke point for traffic, as well as bypassing several stretches of difficult road. Following community concerns about the economic impact of the upgrade, Essential Economics were asked to provide a report demonstrating the potential impacts on tourism and business in the area.

We have developed a method of impact analysis over many projects for VicRoads and others, notably on the Shepparton Bypass, the Goulburn Valley Highway, the Western Highway at Ballarat, the Midland Highway at Guildford and the Calder Highway (Kyneton to Ravenswood section). Our method incorporates local and regional analysis and sensitive discussions with business operators. We were able to successfully adapt this approach to determine likely economic impacts of the Princes Highway proposals on the economy of Lakes Entrance and surrounding towns.

It became plain in our investigations that the potential economic impact of the VicRoads proposal could create serious problems for the tourism and highway businesses in Lakes Entrance, without generating commensurate benefits for the other towns in the immediate area. These negative impacts arose largely from the design of the intersection at Nowa Nowa which tended to direct traffic away from Lakes Entrance. We were able to alert VicRoads to the potential problem and the information has been used to revise the intersection design options to allow better access to Lakes Entrance for tourist traffic.

This project has been a good example of where our economic analysis has been able to significantly improve overall outcomes for infrastructure planning and implementation.