A road overpass would be built just north of Port Wakefield to improve safety and traffic flows if South Australia's Liberal Opposition wins the March 17 election.
Leader Steven Marshall today promised $12.1 million toward putting a single lane overpass at the intersection of the Augusta and Copper Coast highways, but Labor said that was too little money.
"On a normal day the intersection is used by about 3,000 vehicles, but during holiday weekends this soars to as many as 10,000, creating jams as long as 10 kilometres as vehicles travelling from Yorke Peninsula attempt to merge with traffic travelling south," Mr Marshall said.
Site has history of crashes
The Opposition Leader said the busy intersection had a history of serious and fatal crashes, and the planned improvement would also improve freight transport and tourist access to the area.
Transport Minister Stephen Mullighan accused the Liberals of massively underestimating the cost.
"There is no way this project could be delivered for the cost that they have outlined," he said.
The Minister said the Opposition had based its costings on a much smaller overpass project which had improved road safety at McLaren Vale, just south of Adelaide.
"This overpass is proposed to be built on the national highway network [and] needs to accommodate large, higher-productivity trucks at high speeds, which is completely different from what the situation is at McLaren Vale," Mr Mullighan said.
He said Parliament's independent budgeting office could have given the Liberals an accurate costing.
"This is a major embarrassment for Steven Marshall and the Liberals, saying they can deliver this project for only a fraction of what it would actually cost," he said.
Mr Marshall took a swipe at Labor for criticising the costing.
"I'm not going to be lectured to by Stephen Mullighan or anyone else in the Labor Party, they just presided over a $600 million blowout on the new Royal Adelaide Hospital," he said.
The SA Liberals indicated they had spoken with the federal Liberals about matching the state commitment.
