One of Central Victoria’s roads counts among the worst anywhere in the state.
A stretch of the Loddon Valley Highway between Bendigo and Kerang is being ranked as one of the Top Three most-notorious routes Victoria-wide, according to the 2026 My Country Road survey.
Findings from that survey were released today (September 16th) by the RACV.
Respondents cited poor road surface conditions, limited overtaking opportunities, and signage and line-marking issues as their greatest concerns regarding the road.
Two other roads in the region made the Statewide Top 20, being the Northern Hwy between Heathcote and Echuca, and McIvor Hwy between Bendigo and Wallan.
Just over 10 thousand requests for road maintenance were made through the survey, 20 percent of which concerned routes in central and north-west Victoria.
Meantime, the same survey has found that poor road surface conditions and potholes were overwhelmingly identified by respondents as a bugbear on their chosen route, with 71 percent listing it as a concern.
Compare that to the second-most identified issue of limited overtaking opportunities, which accounted for 13 percent of requests.
RACV’s Head of Public Policy, James Williams has told our newsroom that figure is “not a surprise”.
“We are seeing a lot of potholes across the state… it’s reflective of under-investment in our infrastructure, and we’d like to see that change,” Mr Williams said.
Photo supplied: RACV
He believes those levels of under-investment has now “crept-up” on the government.
“So we’ve seen the asset management budget stripped-out over the last three to four years, and now with some heavy rains and deterioration of the roads… those cracks which have been emerging over the last few years are now turning into potholes.
“And they’re widespread – they’re across the state.”
His comments, and the survey’s findings come less than a week after an Auditor-General’s report which found that more than half of all state-funded roads in the Loddon-Mallee region were in a “very poor” condition.
That same report also suggested that over $3 billion will be needed annually to maintain Victoria’s roads “at existing levels”.
Mr Williams is now calling on “whoever is in government come November” to re-invest in the road network “like they always used to”.
“We know asphalt has a life-expectancy of 15 years; that means the Victorian government should get to about seven percent of resurfacing the network each year to stay on-top of that maintenance budget.
“As soon as you stop doing that, that’s when the potholes emerge.”
The full findings of the latest My Country Road survey can be read on the RACV’s website.
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