Plank Road - Plank Roads in Australia

Plank Roads in Australia

In Perth, Western Australia, plank roads were important in the early growth of the agricultural and outer urban areas, given the distances imposed by swamps and relatively infertile soil. As it cost UK£2,000 per kilometre to construct roads by conventional means, the local councils (known as road boards) were experimenting with cheaper approaches to road building. A method called Jandakot Corduroy had been developed at Jandakot south-east of Perth, where a jarrah tramway lay upon 2.3 m-long sleepers, bounded by two 70 cm-wide strips of jarrah planks for cart and carriage wheels. The 90 cm gap was filled with limestone rubble to be used by horses. This reduced the cost of road building by up to 85% after their widespread introduction in 1908. However, increased traffic and suburban development rendered these routes unsatisfactory over time and by the 1950s they had been replaced with bitumen surfaced roads.