Statistics:
- Length:
- 345 km
- Termini:
- Northern: Bass Highway (A2) and Mount St (B18 and unnumbered), Burnie
- Southern: Tasman Highway (A3), Queens Domain
- Miscellaneous:
- Bass Hwy continues as A2 at Burnie
- Suburbs, Towns & Localities Along Route:
- Burnie, Penguin, Ulverstone, Devonport, Latrobe, Deloraine, Westbury, Hadspen, Launceston, Perth, Campbell Town, Ross, Oatlands, Kempton, Brighton, Bridgewater, Glenorchy and Hobart
Route Numbering:
- Current: 1
- Former: 1 2
- Road Authority Internal Classification: 1
- A0087 (Launceston to Granton)
- A0090 (Granton to Hobart)
- A0249 (Burnie to Launceston)
General Information:
Highway 1 is a circumferential route right around Australia, but there is also a small segment located in Tasmania, which more or less travels down the centre of the state. In Tasmania, National Highway 1 is made up of the Brooker Highway between Granton and Hobart, the Midland Highway between Granton and Launceston, and also the Bass Highway between Burnie and Launceston. The Bass Highway is named after explorer George Bass. The route features a spur in Launceston, which connects the CBD with the rest of the highway.
The occurrence of NH1 is a bit of an anomaly and stands out compared to all other routes in the state being alpha-numeric. In the late 1970s when the Tasmanian authorities decided to introduce an alphanumeric numbering system (the first Australian state to do so), the Federal Government who funded National Highways, stopped the Tasmanian government from allocating an alphanumeric number to the route.
History:
- 1930s: Midland Hwy renamed from Main Road.
- 1961: Construction of the Northern Outlet, now part of the Brooker Hwy.
- 1968: Extension of Northern Outlet to Berriedale.
- December 1971: The town of Ross was bypassed when the newly constructed section of the Midland Highway was opened to traffic, taking State Route 1 out of the town centre. 2
- 1977: Brooker Hwy extended to Claremont Link Road.
- 1979: Introduction of NH1 route number.
- 1981: Bypass of Launceston commenced.
- 2001: Hagley-Westbury bypass completed on Bass Highway.
- 2018: Work commenced on The Perth Link Roads project, which relocated Midland Hwy to the west of the town centre. 3
- 2020: Completion of The Perth Link Roads project. 3
1 TAS Government, Department of State Growth, State Roads, Asset Information, TRIPS: Tasmanian Road Information Positioning System, December 2020.
2 Tasmanian Wool Centre, Ticky Tacky Bridge.
3 TAS Government, Transport Services, Road Projects and Planning, Completed Projects, Perth Link Roads.