Labor candidate for Eden-Monaro Mike Kelly has foreshadowed an announcement on the Barton Highway before the federal election on July 2.
Dr Kelly was in Hall on Wednesday for the launch of a campaign by the Barton Highway Community Action Group. The campaign urges voters to head to the polls with the neglected highway on their mind.
The group says with increasing traffic in and out of Canberra, the two-lane, 33-kilometre stretch of highway desperately needs to be duplicated.
But the road was left out of a Labor cash splash on the marginal bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, held by Liberal Peter Hendy, this week.
The seat will be a key battleground in the upcoming election, and campaigners have seized on the fact its boundaries were redrawn to include the highway.
Until this year, the highway was in the safe Liberal seat of Hume.
Earlier in May leaked Liberal party polling suggested Eden-Monaro was a "likely loss" to Labor, after Dr Hendy won the seat from Dr Kelly in 2013.
Dr Kelly did not make a commitment on funding on Wednesday, but said: "I'm working on this at the moment, and we'll have more to say about it later."
Dr Hendy was not at the launch. In a statement, he said: "I believe we now need to fund significant upgrades as soon as possible and I am working with the Prime Minister to see what we can announce in the near future."
Group convenor Sophie Wade said the group knew the highway would take time to improve, but they needed a genuine commitment from politicians now.
"If we wait another three years to get a commitment out of our government, I believe that the regional development will outstrip the capability of the road," she said.
The group was not endorsing a particular candidate, but urged Eden-Monaro residents to give their vote with the Barton Highway as their priority.
The action group says drone footage of the highway, purchased with community-raised funds, is evidence of how dangerous the road is, while hundreds of schoolchildren travel on it each day.
In one shot, a car is seen overtaking buses on a lane heavily populated with cars. "This is our concern, this is events that happen every day on that highway. We need it fixed," Ms Wade said.
Murrumbateman parent Bernadette Collins said the closure of the local Catholic school had meant hundreds more schoolchildren on buses travelling the highway each day. The speed, and busy highway, made it a "really scary" prospect for parents, she said.
Motorists will now see green and white corflutes - "Fix The Barton" and "Our Safety Matters" - attached to trees along the highway.
What the residents don't want, is another survey or study on the highway.
Last year the state and federal governments joined together to publish the Barton Highway draft improvement strategy - at a reported cost of $300,000.
The report records 137 crashes between 2009 and 2013, with seven fatalities and 70 crashes involving injury. The majority of crashes were between Murrumbateman village and the ACT border.
About 40 per cent of crashes occurred on weekends – more than on any weekday. The peak weekday crash period is 3pm-4pm on Friday.
