VICTORIA PASS
This Victoria Pass road on the western side of the Blue Mountains was built by convicts between 1830 and 1838.
Victoria Pass is located on the western side of the Blue Mountains, on the Great Western Highway leading to Lithgow. The road was built by convicts between 1830 and 1838 to avoid the extremely steep and dangerous section of the road down from Mount York to Hartley Vale.
Halfway down the pass is a raised embankment between parallel stone walls. This "causeway", known as Mitchell's Bridge, and the retaining walls leading up to it (Mitchell Ridge Lookout) are an excellent example of colonial road engineering in Australia.
The pass has been in almost continuous use since its construction, although from around 1912 to 1920 it was partly bypassed by the winding but less steep Berghofer Pass to the north.
All work was carried out by convicts and built by hand. The stone wall fills are still the main structural elements of the road today, no improvements to these structures having taken place after the initial construction led by Sir Thomas Mitchell. The road has been widened over the years to accommodate increased traffic, but much of the original track remains intact.
Because of its historic status, which limits modifications, and because of its heavy traffic volume, this part of the Great Western Hwy has become a problem for the Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), which is responsible for road maintenance and improvement. The pass is an inescapable bottleneck today.
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