Frustrated locals, broken promises, and 3 kilometres of unpaved gravel road

The Canberra university student broke two tailgates on his last car, and has now had to fork out $750 to fix an exhaust pipe on his Subaru Forester that came off at the bolts.

"And I drive probably a bit slower than most of the young people around here," the NSW resident said.

"There's so many blind corners where you come over a little bit because the corrugations are so bad ... you have to weigh up, am I going to come over in the middle of the road or am I going to shake my car to pieces?"

NSW residents living just south of the ACT border are calling on the territory government to fulfil its promises to seal the remaining 3 kilometres of Smiths Road, which they warn is dangerous and used by joyriders and car thieves.

Residents say the ACT government has broken repeated pledges to surface the full length of the gravel road, leaving them unable to access key services.

While the government said it had no plans to continue sealing the remaining 3 kilometres of gravel road, the opposition believes residents on the road are the victims of "cross-border buck passing".

Smiths Road Community Association president Clive Haggar said the road was the residents' only all-weather access route.

The unsealed parts of the road deteriorate in rain and drought to the point where service vehicles and trucks refuse to come out, he said.

"Water trucks in the middle of the last drought would not come out on the road, even though there was substantial fire danger here, because of the condition of the dirt section," Mr Haggar said.

"We're left with this 3.5-kilometre barrier to normal usage, and yet out of our community we've got people going to work in the ACT, going to school in the ACT, doing all of their shopping and other business in the ACT."

Smiths Road turns off Naas Road about 2 kilometres south of Tharwa, and continues for another 8 kilometres until it reaches the NSW border. The road is the main connection between Tharwa and Williamsdale and is flanked by Ingledene Forest and Namadgi National Park.

The Smiths Road Community Association said the ACT government made the first of several commitments in 2011 to seal the entire road.

Transport Minister Chris Steel told the association in a 2019 letter, seen by The Canberra Times, the government had committed to upgrading half a kilometre of road a year on Smiths Road

More than 150 people live on the NSW end of the road and travel along the ACT section for work, university and recreation. The road is also used by ACT citizens to access recreational areas.

An ACT government spokesperson said while there was currently no plan to seal further sections of Smiths Road, Roads ACT would consider any relevant upgrade funding opportunities.

The spokesperson also pointed to the government's most recent work, sealing two kilometres of road in 2020 and 2021.

"To keep Smiths Road safe and usable for the local community, the ACT government continues to undertake regular maintenance grading along the unsealed sections of the road every 3-4 months," the spokesperson said.

Matthew Hunter, whose family has lived in the region since the 1960s, said while parts of the road have been sealed and graded regularly, there were too many people using it.

"Basically they grade it and it's back to where it was in two weeks' time just because of the flow of the traffic. ... It's still more traffic so it gets worn quicker," he said.

"There were only four families when we were here, and now there's lots."

While the community association described the road as the "most dangerous in the ACT", there have only been three reported crashes on Smiths Road since 2017, Transport Canberra data showed. The crashes resulted only in property damage.

Mark Parton, the Canberra Liberals member for Brindabella, said the ACT government has failed to fulfil multiple promises to pave the road.

"These people are victims of cross-border buck passing," he said.

"You can understand why they're upset, because the fear is someone's going to die out here... we don't want to see anyone perish on roads in the ACT, irrespective of where they live."

The Legislative Assembly in 2022 voted to call on the Commonwealth government to reclassify roads in the ACT outside the urban footprint as regional roads, including Smiths Road, so they would attract a greater share of federal funding.

"When the same road crosses into NSW, they are all then considered by the Australian government to be regional and attract more funding. It is not fair, and if it continues it means that the ACT's regional roads, and the regional communities that rely on them, will receive less funding than they deserve," Mr Steel told the Assembly at the time.

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The federal government's road safety program provides contributions of 80 per cent of funding towards regional projects and 50 per cent towards urban projects.

Work to seal the NSW section of Smiths Road was set to begin in May 2025 after the Snowy Monaro Regional Council received a grant from the NSW government.