{"id":597548,"date":"2026-04-10T08:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597548\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:58:12","slug":"commuters-trapped-in-south-eastern-freeway-gridlock-blast-lack-of-signage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597548\/","title":{"rendered":"Commuters trapped in South Eastern Freeway gridlock blast lack of signage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Commuters who were stuck queuing for up to four hours following a crash on the South Eastern Freeway on Thursday have blasted a lack of signs warning them of the road closure ahead.<\/p>\n

A B-double truck jackknifed across multiple lanes of the uptrack around 4:15pm, closing the road.<\/p>\n

Nobody was injured in the incident, but commuters who continued to take the route into the hills for several hours \u2014 and subsequently became trapped \u2014 said there were no signs or police warning them to take another route.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Calls for public transport in Mt Barker<\/a><\/p>\n

Labor today announced a $200 million investment in Mount Barker as part of its bid to win the seat of Kavel, but there was a glaring omission in public transport solutions.<\/p>\n

“Why the bloody hell haven’t they got some signs on Cross Road, Portrush Road, Glen Osmond Road, saying don’t bother coming past the toll gate?” a caller named Harry asked 891 ABC Adelaide Mornings<\/a> after being stuck for four hours.<\/p>\n

“Or is that too much like common sense?”<\/p>\n

“I just don’t understand why emergency services, police or somebody wasn’t at the bottom of the freeway just preventing the traffic from going onto the freeway,” said Cheryl, a nurse who had a three-hour trip from the city into the hills.<\/p>\n

“There are multiple alternative routes you can take.”<\/p>\n

“There needs to be a large sign before the intersection of Glen Osmond and Greenhill Road so that motorists can make early decisions about alternative options, followed by another large sign at the Glen Osmond\/Fullarton Road intersection,” said Mary.<\/p>\n

\"Access<\/p>\n

The Eagle On the Hill access lane was equally blocked well into the evening. (Facebook: Carolyn Fairbairn, Adelaide Hills South Eastern Freeway ALERTS)<\/p>\n

Department for Infrastructure and Transport chief executive Jon Whelan told the Breakfast program<\/a> the B-double “took out some light poles” at the accident near Crafers and the Mt Lofty Bridge as well as the central median barrier, and also caused a diesel spill.<\/p>\n

He said both directions of the freeway, which was used daily by nearly 55,000 vehicles, were fully open again by 3am.<\/p>\n

Mr Whelan pointed to the state and federal government joint-funded $200 million Crafers to Glen Osmond Managed Motorway project, which included installing moveable centre barrier gates between Crafers and Glen Osmond to enable contraflow.<\/p>\n

This would enable the diversion of traffic onto the other carriageway in the event of a major crash or closure.<\/p>\n

The project would also install lane-use management signs, such as those that sit above a highway and are illuminated with a red cross when a lane is closed.<\/p>\n

“Do we need additional signage before the intersection at the bottom of the freeway to alert people that use that road? That’s something we’ll take into account.”<\/p>\n

Some listeners, however, were sceptical.<\/p>\n

“For $200 million, I could paint a couple of signs saying ROAD CLOSED AHEAD,” one person texted the ABC.<\/p>\n

“What a load of spin \u2026 just keeps mentioning some $200m future project,” texted another.<\/p>\n

Disruptions are ‘unavoidable’<\/p>\n

Department for Infrastructure and Transport Minister Joe Szakacs said disruptions on any arterial road were inevitable and there would always be “unavoidable” impacts to other road users.<\/p>\n

“What we need to do is to respond as quickly as we have in these incidents, and also to mitigate in the best way we possibly can, with the best use of money,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Crews were still working to finish clearing the uptrack at 10pm following the truck crash at 4:15pm. (Supplied: Meredith Atkins)<\/p>\n

With respect to better signage, he said “the department is answering these questions for me as we sit here” to see if there was an “opportunity to do better.”<\/p>\n

The state government was creating a business case for a Greater Adelaide Freight Bypass for stage one of its High Productivity Vehicle Network program.<\/p>\n

Mr Szakacs said it was “pleased” with its engagement with the federal government so far towards funding a potential bypass, which would significantly reduce heavy freight on the freeway in and out of Adelaide.<\/p>\n

City of Burnside Mayor and local Anne Monceaux said she regularly saw queues of B-double trucks on the freeway “whenever there’s a breakdown of any kind”.<\/p>\n

She said the “only solution was to get the state and feds together” to fund the bypass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Commuters who were stuck queuing for up to four hours following a crash on the South Eastern Freeway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[291590,291588,183284,43,290331,291591,291589,44,291587,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-597548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-b-double","9":"tag-department-for-infrastructure-and-transport","10":"tag-gridlock","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-joe-szakacs","13":"tag-joe-szakas","14":"tag-john-whelan","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-south-eastern-freeway","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}