Olympic Highway is a rural road in the central western and south-eastern Riverina regions of New South Wales, Australia. It services rural communities, links Hume Highway with Mid-Western Highway, and provides part of an alternate road link between Sydney and via and as well as servicing Wagga Wagga, linking with Sturt Highway.
Route
Olympic Highway runs generally north–south, roughly aligned to sections of the Sydney–Melbourne and the Blayney–Demondrille railway lines. A section through Wagga Wagga is a four-lane divided urban road where it is concurrent with Sturt Highway.
The only major river crossing is the Murrumbidgee River, crossed between and Wagga via the Gobbagombalin Bridge, at long believed to be the longest continuous-span viaduct in New South Wales, situated about northwest of the Wagga CBD and opened on 26 July 1997. Prior to the completion of the "Gobba" Bridge, the Olympic Highway followed a route that took it through the Wagga central business district via the Hampden Bridge, a wooden Allan Truss bridge that was opened in 1895 and eventually demolished in 2014.
History
The passing of the Main Roads Act of 1924 through the Parliament of New South Wales provided for the declaration of Main Roads, roads partially funded by the State government through the Main Roads Board (later the Department of Main Roads, and eventually Transport for NSW). Main Road No. 57 was declared from the intersection with Monaro Highway (today Sturt Highway) at Wagga Wagga to Old Junee and continuing north via Temora, Wyalong, Condobolin and Tullamore to the intersection with North-Western Highway (today Mitchell Highway) at Trangie, to provide for additional declarations of State Highways and Trunk Roads, this was amended to Trunk Road 57 and Main Roads 210 and 239 and 243 on 8 April 1929.
The Department of Main Roads, which had succeeded the MRB in 1932, truncated the eastern end of Main Road 243 to Junee on 16 March 1938 (with its western end terminating at the newly declared State Highway 17, later Newell Highway, at Narrandera). Trunk Road 57 was extended south, from Wagga Wagga via Henty and Culcairn to the intersection with Hume Highway near Ettamogah (subsuming Main Road 210), and declared Trunk Road 78 from the intersection with Mid-Western Highway in Cowra via Young, Wombat, Wallandbeen and Cootamundra to Junee (the southern end of Main Road 239 was truncated to meet Trunk Road 78 at Young),
Trunk Road 78 was extended further south via Wagga Wagga, Henty and Culcairn to the intersection with Hume Highway near Ettamogah (subsuming the former alignment of Trunk Road 57, which was truncated just south of Old Junee) and was officially named Olympic Way on 19 June 1963, in honour of part of the path that the Olympic Torch took on its journey from Cowra to Albury for the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. The southern end of Olympic Way was re-aligned on 1 July 1988, to run from Gerogery directly south to terminate at the current-day intersection with Hume Highway roughly 10 km north of its previous terminus at Ettamogah (the former alignment is now known as Gerogery Road).
The passing of the Roads Act of 1993 through the Parliament of New South Wales updated road classifications and the way they could be declared within New South Wales. Under this act, Olympic Way was renamed Olympic Highway in 1996, but despite its name, the road is not an official highway as classified by Transport for NSW, and is considered a rural road.
Olympic Highway was signed National Route 41 across its entire length in 1974. With the conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in both states in 2013, this was replaced with route A41.