Gold Coast Highway

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Gold Coast Highway

Queensland Roads
Length	35km
General direction	North-South
From	Helensvale, Gold Coast
To	Tugun, Gold Coast
Places passed	Southport, Surfers Paradise, Burleigh Heads

The Gold Coast Highway in Queensland, Australia links the coastal suburbs of the Gold Coast. 33km in length, the highway passes through popular tourist resorts such as Southport, Surfers Paradise, Burleigh Heads and Currumbin. As a result, the highway is often prone to congestion. It is characterised by a variety of urban forms, ranging from high-density high rises in Surfers Paradise, Main Beach and Broadbreach, low rise apartments in Palm Beach and Bilinga, historic motels and low-rise residential areas at Miami and light industry at Mermaid Beach.

The most notorious "bottle-neck" is at Tugun, where the Gold Coast Highway joins the Pacific Highway 8km north of Coolangatta. This problem will be rectified by the planned construction of the Tugun Bypass. Capacity improvements are also slated for the area around Frank Street at Labrador where the Highway is presently only a single lane road in each direction.

It was formerly also the major north-south transport route for traffic passing through the Gold Coast. This function has been subsumed by the Pacific Highway and M1, running parallel and to the west.

As of 15 May 2006, the highway will have 5 minute frequency bus services between Southport and Burleigh Heads and a half-hourly 24-hr bus service between Southport and Tweed Heads. Bus lanes are in place at some stages and will be consolidated into a continuous corridor in future. Light rail or a busway is also being considered given that more than half of all public transport trips on the Gold Coast use the highway corridor.