Commissioner in charge of South Australia main roads projects via government highways department from 1927
Daniel Victor Fleming in 1927 became South Australia's first highways commissioner, a independent statutory position in charge of the state government highways and local government department with control over building main roads, such as Gorge Road (at right, through the Adelaide Hills, during the early 20th Century) and bridges.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia and Kathy Nielsen via The Old Highways Days Facebook
The South Australia government took responsibility for building and improving the state’s main roads by passing the Highways Act 1926 that created its highways and local government department headed by a commissioner with a strong independent role.
In 1917, the South Australia government had formed a local government department to oversee constructing and maintaining roads and bridges, still done by local councils. Until World War II, roads in more remote areas, such as the Nullarbor Plain, managed by the engineering and water supply authority.
With increasing motor vehicles in the early 20th Century, major routes across the state tended to be neglected by local councils who were reluctant to spend their money on roads that primarily benefitted those passing through, not locals. To remedy this, under the Highways Act 1926, a highways fund was created from all vehicle licence, registration fees and fines. It also drew on funding from the £20 million federal government road aids scheme for building arterial, trunk and developmental roads (with states contributing 15 shillings in the dollar). Roads maintenance was left to the states with main roads boards working with local authorities to look after their areas.
But overall control of the South Australian main roads was given to the highways commissioner in charge of the highways and local government department but a statutory position giving him independence from politicians, except for needing the government minister’s permission to allocate funds. Daniel Victor Fleming, regarded as extremely competent and unscrupulously honest, was appointed the first highways commissioner. After working as an engineer with shires in Victoria, he had joined the South Australian government staff as a draftsman in 1909 and worked his way up in engineering roles to highways commissioner and director of local government from 1927.
As commissioner, Fleming created the “great plan” to reconstruct and seal all the state's major highways and, by 1931, most major population centres within 150 kilometres of Adelaide were connected with bitumen-sealed highways. During the 1930s, an average of 550 kilometres of road were sealed annually, totalling 3,000 by 1939. Despite having sole use of the highways fund, the highways and local government department still relied heavily on federal funds, especially during the Depression and world war years.
The department gradually developing types of pavement and bridge construction suitable for local conditions. An example was highlighted Stuart Nicol in the Royal Automobile Association South Australia's book Bullock Tracks and Bitumen: South Australia's Motoring Heritage. On Eyre Peninsula, Robert Bratten, overseer for road building and maintenance with Tumby Bay District Council, in the 1920s overcame the serious and widespread problem of hard limestone layer at the surface. Bratten devised a plough to rip and remove the tough surface that was was graded, cambered and compressed into a vastly improved softer limestone surface. Brattenised roads appeared throughout the western South Australain the 1930s although they were damaged by strong winds and heavy rain.
Another innovation for South Australia in 1937 was at the intersection of King William. Hindley and Rundle streets where three-colour traffic signals replaced a Swedish-made two-colour version installed 10 years earlier.
