Albany Highway

Albany Highway links Western Australia's capital city Perth with its oldest settlement, Albany, on the state's south coast. The 405-kilometre-long (252 mi) highway travels through the southern Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions, and is designated State Route 30 for most of its length. Outside of Perth the highway is predominately a sealed, single carriageway with regular overtaking lanes in some undulating areas. Albany Highway commences at The Causeway, a river crossing that connects to Perth's central business district. The highway heads south-east through Perth's metropolitan region, bypassed in part by Shepperton Road and Kenwick Link, and continues south-eastwards through to Albany. It intersects several major roads in Perth, including the Leach, Tonkin, Brookton, and South Western highways. The rural section of Albany Highway connects to important regional roads at the few towns and roadhouses along the route, including Coalfields Highway at Arthur River, Great Southern Highway at Cranbrook, and Muir Highway at Mount Barker.

Prior to European settlement, the indigenous Noongar people had a considerable network of tracks, including a trade route between the areas now known as Perth and Albany. Construction of a road between Perth and Albany began soon after the naming of Albany in 1832, but progress was slow, with only 16 miles (26 km) completed by 1833. A monthly mail route which operated in the 1840s had such trouble with the journey that a new contractor was required each year, and from 1847 the mail route detoured via Bunbury. The introduction of convicts in 1850, and thus convict labour, allowed a road along the direct route to be fully constructed by 1863.

The rise of the motor vehicle era in the early 20th century saw the road gain prominence once more, and by 1939 the whole road had been sealed. Congestion at the Perth end of the road in the 1930s led to parallel roads Berwick Street and Shepperton Road being upgraded to provide bypasses. The entire Perth−Albany road was renamed Albany Highway on 2 October 1940, in recognition of its importance as an arterial traffic route. From the late 1970s, $49 million over ten years was spent on repairing Albany Highway, and the experience saw Main Roads develop a program of interventions to prevent costly road reconstruction. Since the 1990s Main Roads has been upgrading various portions along the length of Albany Highway, including widening sections to dual carriageways in Perth, and the construction of the Kenwick Link bypass.

Albany Highway commences at The Causeway, a river crossing that connects to Perth's central business district. The highway heads south-east through Perth's metropolitan region, and continues through the southern Wheatbelt and Great Southern regions to Albany on the south coast of Western Australia. Albany Highway is generally a two-lane single carriageway road, but with additional lanes and dual-carriageway sections in Perth and Albany. The highway is allocated State Route 30, except for bypassed sections in Perth, and the southernmost portion in Albany. The part bypassed by Kenwick Link is allocated Alternate State Route 30, and a short length in Arthur River is concurrently allocated State Route 107. Albany Highway also carries sections of Heritage Country Tourist Drive (Tourist Drive 205) and Great Southern Tourist Way (Tourist Drive 356).

Main Roads Western Australia monitors traffic volume across the state's road network, including various locations along Albany Highway. In the 2013/14 financial year, the recorded traffic volumes ranged between 3880 and 70,690 vehicles per weekday in Perth, 1980 to 3880 in the Wheatbelt, and 1720 to 5120 in the Great Southern. The highest percentage of heavy traffic was 29.2%, south of Jarrahdale Road in the Wheatbelt. Reports commissioned by the Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia (RAC) in 2006 and 2008 gave the majority of the highway a three-star safety rating out of five, with an approximately 20-kilometre-long (12 mi) section south-east of Armadale rated at a two star level. The overall highway network was generally rated as three-star or four-star, but around 10% in 2006 and 5% in 2008 received a two-star rating.

In Perth, Albany Highway's north-western terminus is at a parclo interchange with The Causeway, Shepperton Road, and Great Eastern and Canning Highways in Victoria Park. The first 200 metres (660 ft) of the road is one-way into the interchange, but only connecting to The Causeway and Canning Highway – there is no direct access to the other roads. For the next four kilometres (2.5 mi), the highway is a two-lane, two-way high street serving Victoria Park's town centre, and continuing south-east through East Victoria Park. The nearby four-lane Shepperton Road serves as a bypass, carrying through-traffic as well as State Route 30.

The two roads converge at an intersection with Welshpool Road, and for 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) Albany Highway serves as an arterial route in Perth's south-eastern suburbs, varying between a single carriageway and dual carriageway, and between a four- and six-lane capacity. This part of the highway is dominated by commercial shopping precincts in Bentley, Cannington, Maddington, Gosnells and Kelmscott, with numerous sets of traffic lights. The section of Albany Highway through Beckenham and Kenwick is allocated Alternate State Route 30, while State Route 30 follows a bypass, Kenwick Link.

Albany Highway has a folded diamond interchange with Tonkin Highway in Gosnells, and continues south for seven kilometres (4.3 mi) past commercial and residential properties in Kelmscott and Mount Nasura. The highway has a T junction that is the western terminus of Brookton Highway, at the boundary between Kelmscott, and Mount Nasura. Further south in Armadale, the highway intersects the eastern end of Armadale Road and northern end of South Western Highway.