Two of Toowong’s busiest roads, High Street and Sylvan Road, are included in a $110 million resurfacing program covering almost a million square metres of road surface across Brisbane, with the works branded “Operation Smooth” forming part of a broader $1.9 billion transport and infrastructure package for the coming year.
For Toowong residents, the resurfacing arrives alongside separate, longer-running efforts to address some of the suburb’s more persistent road safety concerns, particularly on Sylvan Road.
High Street’s traffic bottleneck problem
High Street services a mix of commercial and residential areas in Toowong and has carried heavy traffic loads for decades, partly a legacy of the Toowong Village shopping centre’s construction history.
The centre was built in a location Brisbane’s planning authority had originally opposed due to traffic congestion concerns in the surrounding streets, and it has since been described as a permanent traffic bottleneck between Moggill Road and Coronation Drive.
High Street sits within that same congested corridor, and resurfacing works here are expected to address surface wear that has built up under sustained traffic volumes.
Sylvan Road’s long wait for a safer design
Sylvan Road’s inclusion in the resurfacing program lands against a much longer and more complicated backdrop. The road connects the Western Freeway Bikeway and the Bicentennial Bikeway, making it the critical link in Brisbane’s western active transport corridor.
It has also been one of the city’s most consistently flagged hazardous cycling routes, featuring in BikeSpot‘s 2023 rankings of dangerous Brisbane roads due to high traffic speeds, dangerous intersections and a lack of separation between bikes and vehicles.
At some sections during peak hour, cyclists make up around 40 per cent of all traffic on Sylvan Road between 7am and 8am, yet the existing bike lane often runs in the door zone of parked cars, a configuration cycling safety advocates have long identified as a serious injury risk. A 2017 safety upgrade introduced peak hour bike lanes along the road, but calls for a fully separated bikeway have continued for years since.
Community engagement on a Sylvan Road bikeway and local network improvements project found strong support for a separated design. Of those who responded, 94 per cent said they would feel safe or very safe travelling the road if a separated bikeway were installed, and 93 per cent said it would have a positive effect on their travel experience overall.
Avoiding crashes with vehicles, unsafe turning movements and limited crossing options were the most commonly cited concerns.
Design work for the long-discussed separated bikeway has now been included in forward budget planning, following more than a decade of advocacy from the area’s Bike User Group and residents. The resurfacing works now underway on Sylvan Road sit alongside, though are separate from, that broader design and construction process.
What residents can expect during the works
Brisbane’s standard approach to resurfacing involves advance notice to residents before works begin, with councils typically flagging whether disruption will include night works, temporary lane closures, reduced speed limits or vehicle relocation requirements.
A detailed construction schedule for each road has not yet been released, so the exact timing and duration of works on High Street and Sylvan Road remains to be confirmed.
Once complete, the resurfacing is expected to deliver a smoother and safer driving surface on two roads that carry significant daily traffic through one of Brisbane’s busiest inner western suburbs.
For updates on roadworks and closures, residents can check QLDTraffic’s live traffic alerts or click here.
Published 17-June-2026
