With the Yeppen North project completed,  transport operators wanting to open up depots  in the GIA,  can do so  with full knowledge that they can be servicing their Rockhampton clients in 10-15 minutes from leaving the GIA.   The likes of Toll moving part of their transport business from Port Curtis on the Yeppen  flood plain out to Somerset Road in the Gibb Group’s new Gracemere Industry Park,  will be just the start of more companies realising the benefits of being located in the GIA where they can bring road trains to their depots.    

The memories of the  long-suffering motorists in the queues,  morning and evening to and from Gracemere are a thing of the past.   There is now no peak hour traffic  queue in or out of the City to Gracemere.

The project to build a separate traffic bridge of two lanes just to the south of the Yeppen Lagoon  was completed earlier this month and officially commissioned  on 27 November 2013  by the Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss  along with guest speakers including the Queensland Minister for Transport and Main Roads Scott Emerson,  Federal Representatives Ken O’Dowd and Michelle Landry.

The engineering  design team at  TMR are to be congratulated on ‘getting it right’ and providing a smooth transition from one bridge and congested intersections to a raised bridge and new approaches onto and off the Yeppen roundabout.   Traffic lights at the intersection of Dawson Road and across to Jellicoe Street allow Hastings Deering  employees to safely travel to and from work.

The important announcement by Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss, eagerly awaited by all present and many other Rockhampton and Gracemere residents, was the full funding of the Yeppen South project which will allow Gracemere residents and workers to get into Rockhampton in peak flood times  and also obviously protect Rockhampton from being cut off  from the south and west for days or weeks at a time at the height of wet season weather.

The successful tenderer is the John Holland Group and those on the road will see work starting in  the New Year.  The 1.6 km of raised bridge will have  over 2000 piles (26.7 km of cumulative piling)  as part of the project.  Built at a Q100 level, the Yeppen South project will be approximately 3 m higher than the Bruce Highway and will comprise of 390 T-Girders

Gracemere is  already fully accessible to the south at times when Rockhampton is isolated from its southern counterparts  and with the completion of the Yeppen South Project in two years time,  travel into Rockhampton from Gracemere  and from the south will not be impeded by the worst of floods.

The opening and major announcement demonstrate the great reasons why the GIA should be considered for transport companies or any resource related businesses.