It was 2013 when work first began on the Ballina to Woolgoolga Pacific Highway upgrade.

The grand plan was to create a 4 Lane highway from Sydney to the Queensland border. This was the final section to complete that vision, completion was announced yesterday by MP for Page Kevin Hogan just in time for those travelling south for the Christmas/New Year holidays.

MP for Page Kevin Hogan was appropriately excited when he announced the completion on his Facebook page.

THE PACIFIC HIGHWAY UPGRADE IS FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The last section south of Woodburn is set to open this weekend. What an amazing job it has been to watch this get built over the last 7 years.

The section between Woolgoolga and Ballina cost $5 billion, is 144 kilometres long and will be - FINISHED THIS WEEKEND!!!

This is certainly an historic event for our community. It is now a safer road, there will be less fatalities and quicker travel times.

More than 3000 people were employed on this project at its peak period with many more indirect jobs created.

The number of fatal crashes on the highway has more than halved since the upgrade started.

The overall travel distance between Woolgoolga and Ballina will be about 13 kilometres shorter and travel time will be about 25 minutes faster.

Through construction there has been over 15 million cubic metres of earthwork completed.

This has been Australia’s largest concrete paving job, with more than 785,000 cubic metres of concrete for paving completed.

More than 240,000 tonnes of asphalt has been used for paving, and more than 8,900 precast concrete elements have been used.

There are 170 bridges over rivers, creeks, and floodplains, including major bridges crossing the Clarence and Richmond rivers.

Very exciting. Thank you to everyone involved in the construction.

Many of you who travel the Pacific Highway will know that the Coffs Harbour section is the last hurdle in completing a 'no town' highway between Sydney and Tweed. That project has just commenced and includes a tunnel similar to the St Helena tunnel so completion will be a few years away.

For the next week, there will be some final maintenance procedures to complete, weather permitting. With the wet weather to continue into next week, delays to the work can be expected.

From Monday, there will be four days of work on the Pacific Highway between Glenugie and Maclean to carry out landscape maintenance and survey work and install wire rope safety barriers. Motorists can expect traffic control, lane closures and a reduced speed limit of 60km/h between 7am and 6pm.

Additional changes to local roads

From Monday, there will be up to four days of work at the Coolgardie interchange at Coolgardie, Signata Road, Backwall Drive and Kays Road at Pimlico and Wardell Road at Wardell to carry out asphalting, line marking and drainage work and install guardrails. Motorists can expect traffic control, lane closures and short stoppages at times between 6am and 6pm.

Also from Monday, there will be six days of work on Woodburn-Evans Head Road at Woodburn and Broadwater-Evans Head Road at Broadwater to install signposts and carry out finishing work. Motorists can expect lane closures, traffic control and a reduced speed limit between 6am and 6pm.

Further south from Monday, there will be six days of work on Nortons Road, Whites Road, Marozin Road, Redgate Road at New Italy and Tuckombil Road at Woodburn to install traffic guardrails and carry out paving and road maintenance. Motorists can expect traffic control and lane closures between 6am and 6pm.

From Wednesday, there will be two days of work at the Woodburn interchange to install light poles. Motorists can expect traffic control and short stoppages at times between 6am and 6pm.

Motorists are advised to drive to the conditions and follow the direction of signs and traffic control.

Transport for NSW thanks motorists for their patience during this time.