Roe Highway forms a strategic link in Perth's road network, running between the Great Northern Highway in Midland and the Kwinana Freeway in Jandakot. It is one of the major heavy vehicle routes in the Perth metropolitan area with between 17,000 and 45,000 vehicles per day of which 15 to 20 percent are heavy vehicles. 

Please click here to view a 3 minute contextual overview.

With Reid Highway, it functions as a high quality ring road, allowing north-south traffic to bypass the Perth CBD and the inner northern and eastern metropolitan suburbs, and was designed to ultimately provide a freight network to the existing Fremantle Inner Harbour, and proposed future Outer Harbour.

The Fremantle Ports and associated transport connections are crucial to Perth’s economy, with 22 percent of its metropolitan area income depending on exports. And this is anticipated to grow. Freight movement through the Fremantle Ports Inner Harbour is currently at half capacity and is expected to double by 2016.

Under existing conditions, the heavy traffic volumes along parallel east-west links including South Street and Leach Highway generate major safety, noise, truck movements and accessibility problems for local residents and businesses. 

Over time a number of alternative options have been considered, with the most appropriate solution identified as extending Roe Highway from where it currently ends at Kwinana Freeway west to Stock Road.

The extension of the highway is expected to achieve important community benefits such as:

• Completing the key strategic link in Perth’s road network which connects Reid Highway, Great Northern Highway and Great Eastern Highway in the Midland area to Tonkin Highway, Kwinana Freeway and Stock Road
• Providing improved access to the Fremantle Inner Harbour
• Forming part of the key freight route to the proposed Outer Harbour and the expanding Kwinana industrial area
• Removing trucks from the residential areas along Leach Highway between Stock Road and Kwinana Freeway, which will improve safety, reduce noise and improve the general amenity in this area
• Removing trucks from Kwinana Freeway, which is primarily a light vehicle road, between Leach Highway and Roe Highway, improving safety and reducing congestion
• Improving safety and reducing congestion on the east-west roads in the Murdoch area such as South Street and Farrington Road, and other local roads
• Allowing for improved access to the future Fiona Stanley Hospital and other developments in the Murdoch Activity Centre 
• Providing better access for residents in the City of Cockburn who are travelling to the east and better access from the east to the rapidly expanding Cockburn coast area.