Road Photos & Information: New South Wales
M31   Hume Motorway & Hume Highway (M31)

Statistics:

Route Numbering:

General Information:

The Hume Highway is one of Australia's most vital highway links. Providing access between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's 2 largest cities. The National Highway section of the Hume Highway consists of 100% dual carriageway road, either rural expressway or motorway standard.

In NSW, the highway in one form or another started life as the Great South Road, linking Sydney with the southern highlands and eventually beyond. The highway was named in 1928 after Hamilton Hume (1797-1873), a famous explorer in the early 19th century who, in 1824, in conjunction with William Hovell first found an overland route between Sydney and the infant colonial outpost of Port Phillip, the original name of Melbourne.

M31 is the main freight and commuter route between Sydney and Melbourne and has gone through a massive amount of transformation over the past 30 or so years, with many towns being bypassed along its route as well and gradual upgrades to motorway standards. Since the 1960s, the road has either been duplicated, where alignments allow for it, and also large deviations have also been part of the upgrade process.

The route around the Mittagong area averages around 16,000 vehicles every day, in other sections the number drops off a little or closer to Sydney increases.2

The route forms the Remembrance Driveway which honours war veterans, click here for the Remembrance Driveway web site.

Here are some interesting statistics on the Hume Highway: 1

History (Covers current alignment and previous alignments, which may be now under another route number):

1 Roads and Maritime Services
2 Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government
3 Department of Main Roads. The Roadmakers, A History of Main Roads in New South Wales, ISBN 0 7240 0439 4
4 Roads and Maritime Services, RMS achievements in transport infrastructure projects
5 Argyle County web site
6 Berrima Business Houses
7 Roads and Maritime Services, Projects, F5 Freeway widening
8 Roads and Maritime Services, Roads and Maritime Services, Projects, Hume Highway, Community Update, October 2011
9 Roads and Martime Services, Projects, Hume Highway, Holbrook Bypass

Last updated: 05-Jan-2019 13:45

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