The owner of the region's historic Brindabella Station wants better road access for tourists, and is reluctant to advertise holiday accommodation because of the state of the Brindabella Road.
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Brian Barlin has run a working farm and holiday cottages at Brindabella Station for 30 years and believes rising popularity of four-wheel-drive vehicles is causing more wear and tear on the road, which is also used by people taking the scenic route from Canberra to Tumut, Wagga and in some cases Melbourne.
"It is extremely bad and there's a lot of dust and pollution going into the Cotter catchment," Mr Barlin said.
The ACT Government has no plans to upgrade the road.
One of the mountains' best known valleys, the Goodradigbee River weaves a glistening silver ribbon through the farming area where author Miles Franklin went to school and playwright Gwen Meredith wrote many episodes of the radio serial Blue Hills.
Mr Barlin said the worst sections of the Brindabella Road were around an area known as Piccadilly Circus.
He said the government had been able to find a huge amount of money for cycling in the mountains, and Brindabella Road was an important access for bushfire fighting vehicles.
Mr Barlin said if the ACT Government came up with an amount of $3.2 million for sealing a small section on the ACT border, Tumut Shire Council would probably upgrade the road on the NSW side.
Brindabella Road has 16.8 kilometres of sealed road followed by 8.7 kilometres of gravel road to the ACT/NSW border. According to Territory and Municipal Services a traffic count in March, 2014 recorded on average 25 vehicles a day.
A spokesman said traffic had not increased over the long term.
"TAMS is currently conducting an upgrade of the Mount Franklin Road. This requires heavy vehicle access via Brindabella Road, so there is a short term increase in traffic in the area," the spokesman said.