A civil engineering student and aspiring urban planning expert has named the highway he calls Australia’s worst.
Sharath Mahendran has awarded the unwanted distinction to the infamous Mount Ousley Road in Wollongong, south of Sydney, on his popular YouTube channel Beautiful building.
Mahendran, 22, cited the road’s sharp bends, dangerous at-grade intersections and the “most confusing junction in the country.”
He even went so far as to call Mount Ousley Road a “fake highway.”
“Yes, it’s on the M1 – the ‘M’ is only issued on freeways in NSW,” he explained to his 43,000 subscribers.
“But make no mistake. Mount Ousley Road is just a regular road masquerading as a highway.”
The road’s origins date back to 1942, when it was built as a defence route during World War II to make it easier to travel from Sydney to the Illawarra region if the Japanese invaded.
The student explained how the road was expanded over the years, including work in 1964 and 1975 to connect the road to the F6 at its southern and northern ends.
A civil engineering student and budding urban planning expert has named what he considers the worst road in Australia (pictured)
Mr Mahendran described the Bulli Tops interchange on the north side as the most confusing interchange he has ever seen.
“There are a total of five roads that connect to this junction,” he continued.
‘But there is also a restaurant, a lookout point and a tourist centre – because they really belong on a motorway!’
Presented in a humorous manner and which has earned him tens of thousands of followers, the 16-minute video goes on to explain the many confusing aspects of Mount Ousley Road.
Some examples of this include what he calls the ‘random’ junction of the old Princes Highway with a southbound carriageway and its placement on the right-hand side of the Princes Highway off-ramp to Appin Road.
Then there is the way the carriageway splits northbound, meaning drivers who want to stay on the M1 essentially have to take a turn.
Mr Mahendran (pictured) said: ‘Mount Ousley Road is just a normal road masquerading as a motorway.’
Mr. Mahendran also had some positive things to say about the road.
“To be clear, (Bulli Tops) interchange is not that confusing to drive on. It’s pretty well signposted,” he said.
‘But from the perspective of a planner and an engineer, it’s almost unthinkable that it exists in this form.
‘The fact that the lanes are so far apart and that Appin Road appears to be given arbitrary priority at much of the interchange seems to point to what was once planned here.’
The video has attracted nearly 50,000 views and hundreds of comments
‘I can’t believe Mt Ousley Rd has been lying to us this whole time. I trusted it when it said it was a motorway. Pure betrayal,’ wrote one viewer
Sharath Mahendran said the Bulli Tops interchange (pictured) on the north side is ‘the most confusing interchange’ he has ever seen
Another said they “used to live right by the bottom intersection. I can remember Dad driving us home, turning right, into the southbound lanes.”
Others pointed out even more flaws of the ‘fake highway’.
‘Mt Ousley Road also prevents pedestrian (hikers and mountain bikers) access along the top of the escarpment (parts of it are really beautiful up there, away from the road) at Clive Bissel Drive,’ one viewer said.
Another said they had ‘driven this road to/from Wollongong several times but never understood it’.