The Toowoomba Connection Road is a former section of the

Warrego Highway The Warrego Highway is located in southern Queensland, Australia. It connects coastal centres to the south western areas of the state, and is approximately 715 km in length. It takes its name from the Warrego River, which is the endpoint ...

that passes through the city of

Toowoomba Toowoomba ( ), nicknamed 'The Garden City' and 'T-Bar', is a city on the border of South East Queensland and Darling Downs regions of Queensland, Australia. It is located west of Queensland's capital, Brisbane. The urban population of Toowoom ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. With the opening of the

Toowoomba Bypass The Toowoomba Bypass, known as Toowoomba Second Range Crossing during planning and construction, is a grade separated, dual carriageway bypass and partial ring road constructed to the north and west of Toowoomba, Queensland. Construction com ...

in 2019 the Warrego Highway was redirected to it, and the bypassed section of the highway was renamed Toowoomba Connection Road and assigned the route number A21.

Route description

The road commences in the rural locality of Helidon Spa, where it diverges from the Warrego Highway, providing a more direct route to the Toowoomba CBD. It passes through the rural localities of Postmans Ridge and Withcott before ascending the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...

to Toowoomba. It passes between the CBD and South Toowoomba before turning north and then north-west through the suburbs of Newtown and

Wilsonton Wilsonton is an urban locality in the Toowoomba Region, Queensland, Australia. In the , Wilsonton had a population of 5,891 people. Geography Wilsonton is located by road north-west of the Toowoomba central business district. Toowoomba Cit ...

. It then passes through outer suburbs to the rural locality of

Charlton Charlton may refer to: People * Charlton (surname) * Charlton (given name) Places Australia * Charlton, Queensland * Charlton, Victoria * Division of Charlton, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in New South Wales ...

, where it ends at an intersection with the Warrego Highway and the

Gore Highway The Gore Highway is a highway running between Toowoomba and Goondiwindi in Queensland, Australia. Together with Goulburn Valley Highway and Newell Highway, it is a part of the National Highway's Melbourne to Brisbane link. It is signed as Nat ...

History

In January 2011, the Warrego Highway was extensively damaged where it crossed the Toowoomba Range. This included land slips, shoulder and embankment erosion, the erosion of drains and damaged rock fall netting. The road wasn't fully repaired with all four lanes open until September 2011. The Toowoomba Bypass was completed in September 2019 and bypasses the urban area of Toowoomba and provides a better crossing of the Great Dividing Range. Warrego Highway (A2) was rerouted via the bypass between Helidon Spa (in the east) and the interchange at Charlton (in the west). The original section of Warrego Highway through Toowoomba was renamed Toowoomba Connection Road (A21).

The "Toll Bar"

The section of the Warrego Highway from Withcott to the top of the Toowoomba Range was first opened in January, 1855 as a toll road, named Toll Bar Road. The toll collection point was marked by a bar across the road and a fence on either side. The upper section of Toll Bar Road was initially unsealed and very steep, with grades up to 14%. This road remained in use until December, 1939, when work on a new, less steep, upper section was completed. Part of the upper section is now a suburban street named Old Toll Bar Road. The term "The Toll Bar" is sometimes used by locals to describe the current road, and it is also used in the mapping software distributed with

Navman Established by Sir Peter Maire in 1986 as New Zealand-based Talon Technology, Navman (as the company became known in the 1990s) is a GPS systems company providing stand-alone GPS units, OEM GPS modules, GPS software for Palm handhelds and Poc ...

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based hyperbolic navigation system owned by the United States Space Force and operated by Mission Delta 31. It is one of the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that provide geol ...

systems.

Upgrades

James Street culverts

A project under the Warrego Highway funding arrangements to upgrade two culverts in James Street (now part of this road) at a cost of $21.1 million, was completed in December 2020.

Hursley Road intersection

A project to develop a business case for the upgrade of the Hursley Road intersection, at a cost of $500,000, was to start in November 2021.

Major intersections

References

{{Road infrastructure in Queensland Roads in Queensland Toowoomba