The VicRoads management team spent the past two days in the North East, talking to councils and other groups about problem roads in the region.

Deputy chief executive Peter Todd said crash data showed the freeway’s reduced speed limit, in place at McKoy Street for the past two years, had “done its job”.

“We’ll have to keep looking at what we do in the future – we’ll have to look as development continues to grow, pressure grows,” he said.

“In the longer term, we may have to do something else there so we want to work with the local community, with council, with what we might need to do in that location.

“We know the 80km/h has been a real success so far, but we’re not going to sit back and just do nothing, we want to see what we might need to do into the future.”

Roadworks to install safety barriers over the past few months will continue until they stretch all the way from Albury to Melbourne.

“These barriers save lives,” Mr Todd said. “They act like a rubber band and bring you back onto the road so instead of running off into a tree or some other stationary object, where the outcomes are really horrific, people’s lives will be saved.”

Wodonga Council chief executive Patience Harrington said the Hume Freeway was one of the topics of discussions with VicRoads.

“We’re talking about the increased amount of freight on the roads, not only in and around Wodonga, but in and around our region,” she said.

“Even the Murray Valley Highway coming out at Logic - that needs to have a focus to meet the needs of the freight.”

VicRoads management also met with cyclists and snow resort representatives in Bright to discuss how to spend the $4 million allocated for upgrades to the Great Alpine Road.

Mr Todd praised the Victorian government for increasing maintenance funding to $343 million for the whole state in 2017/18.

“We’re now working through the program of that,” he said. “That’s going to be going into all regions and particularly the North East.”