User:Lankiveil/Anzac Avenue

Anzac Avenue is a major arterial road north of Brisbane, Queensland. It runs 18km from Petrie to Redcliffe, with most of the route signed as state route 71. The route was formerly the main route to the Redcliffe peninsula, until the Houghton Highway bridge was built.

The road provides the quickest access to the Peninsula Fair Shopping Centre, as well as being the main access road for the Redcliffe Hospital.

Description
The current route begins in Petrie, at a roundabout intersection with state route 58 Gympie Road and Dayboro Road. It proceeds north, then north-east, through Kallangur, before crossing the Bruce Highway near North Lakes. After passing the Westfield North Lakes shopping centre, it proceeds north-east again through semi-rural areas near Mango Hill, before crossing Hays Inlet at Saltwater Creek, and intersecting with state route 26 at Deception Bay Road. Signed as both routes 71 and 26, it then turns eastward and proceeds through the suburbs of Rothwell, Kippa-Ring, reverting to route 71 only at an intersection with Elizabeth Avenue, before proceeding to Redcliffe, crossing state route 27 at Oxley Avenue, and terminating at a roundabout with Redcliffe Parade on the waterfront.

Major Intersections
Intersections are listed from west to east.

Early History
The first road along the route was an Aboriginal track used to access Kippa Ring, then the site of a prominent bora ring. By the 1860s, a road had been constructed from Bald Hills to Redcliffe, using part of the route of the current Anzac Avenue, but this road was poorly constructed and fell into disuse within a couple of years. Thomas Petrie, in the 1870s, marked another track from Hays Inlet to Redcliffe, this route was later surveyed and became known as "Brisbane Road", and became the primary way of accessing the Redcliffe Peninsula by road, although the trip was still difficult and all but impossible during inclement weather.

Memorial Avenue
After the first world war, memorials to fallen servicemen were erected across Queensland and often became prominent features in their communities. Utilitarian monuments, such as halls, hospitals, and roads became common, not just to commemorate war dead, but also to provide essential services to growing communities and provide work for returned soldiers. Anzac Avenue was one such project, built along a route first surveyed in the 1860s, designed to provide a reliable link to Redcliffe, which at the time was still largely isolated and could only be reached easily by boat, and not by car, whch was rapidly becoming the transport method of choice for Queenslanders.

In 1922, Thomas Rothwell, a successful Brisbane businessnam, and the RACQ, presented a plan to John Coyne, the Queensland Lands Minister, for the construction of a road between Petrie and Redcliffe. Coyne agreed to provide funding for the construction materials used on the road, provided that Rothwell and the RACQ could provide £20,000 for the payment of the returned soldiers who would build the road. To this end, Rothwell formed the Anzac Avenue Memorial Committee to secure the funds, and was elected as its chairman. Fundraising proceeded steadily, with a large billboard being erected on Queen Street in Brisbane, featuring a car that moved forward a step for every £1000 raised. The committee received a significant boost when a new federal government funding arrangement contributed £12,000 towards the effort. Within six months of beginning fundraising, the full amount had been raised and construction was ready to begin.

Construction activity proceeded rapidly; in December 1922 there were twenty-five returned servicemen employed constructing the road, by March of the following year, this number had increased to fifty. Work included not just sealing the road, using a mixture of tar and trachyte sourced from a quarry at Beerburrum, but also constructing culverts to cross over Hays Inlet and Saltwater Creek, and associated earthworks to provide a stable base for the roadway in the often low-lying areas that the route passed through. The road was first opened to traffic in 1925 at a ceremony, at which Acting Premier William Forgan Smith, Redcliffe mayor J. B. Dunn and Pine Rivers Shire Chairman W. Bradley spoke.

Shortly after the road was opened, Rothwell wrote to local newspapers to draw attention to the tree planting work that would also be required before the plan came to fruition. As early as 1922, Rothwell and the assistant director of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, had been inspecting the route to come up with a suitable scheme for planting trees. The first planting, of two cocos palms, took place in February 1925. My mid-1927, 1000 trees had been planted, and by November 1929 over 2000 trees had been established.

Recent History
Despite the construction of the Hornibrook Bridge in 1935 providing an alternative route by car to the Redcliffe peninsula, traffic volumes along Anzac Avenue steadily increased as the years went by, necessitating duplication of some sections of the road in the 1980s and the 1990s. This widening, although required in order to manage traffic congestion, resulted in the need to remove or relocate some of the tree plantings along the route, a move that was not without controversy at the time.

Although originally primarily a rural route, increasing population growth in the area, most notably the development of entirely new suburbs such as Rothwell and North Lakes, has meant that much of the route has taken on a suburban character, providing everyday access to residents, rather than being a tourist drive, as originally planned. The road was inducted onto the Queensland Heritage Register in 2009.

Plantings
A number of different types of tree were selected by the Anzac Avenue Memorial Committee to be placed along the roadside. These included:
 * Slash Pines (Pinus elliottii)
 * Norfolk Island Pines (Araucaria heterophylla)
 * Mango Trees (Mangifera indica)
 * Firewheel Trees (Stenocarpus sinuatus)