Additionally, between Brunswick Heads and Port Macquarie (excluding a short stretch around Coffs Harbour), the road is also signed as Pacific Motorway, but has not been legally gazetted as such.

For direct Sydney–Brisbane travel, New England Highway is an alternative that passes through fewer major towns and carries less local traffic.

Another alternative route is via the scenic Bucketts Way and Thunderbolts Way to the Northern Tablelands at Walcha before rejoining New England Highway at Uralla.

Major cities and towns along Pacific Highway include: Gosford, Wyong, Newcastle, Taree, Port Macquarie, Kempsey, Coffs Harbour, Grafton, Ballina and Byron Bay, all in New South Wales; and Gold Coast in Queensland.

Major river crossings include the Hawkesbury, Hunter, Myall (just to the east of Bulahdelah), Manning (south of Coopernook), Hastings (west of Port Macquarie), Macleay (just to the east of Frederickton), Nambucca (near Macksville), Bellinger (near Raleigh), Clarence (via the Harwood Bridge near Maclean), Richmond (at Ballina), Brunswick, and Tweed rivers.

When the Warringah Freeway was built in the late 1960s, southbound traffic was diverted through North Sydney via Mount Street.

[8] From Wahroonga, Pacific Highway is mostly parallel to the freeway until Kariong (at which point it diverts into the Central Coast through Gosford and Wyong).

The section of the highway from Cowan to Kariong follows a scenic winding route with varying speed limits of either 60 or 70 km/h (37 or 43 mph).

Since the most recent declaration of the highway in the April 2010 gazette, the New South Wales section of the highway is officially made up of four separate sections: Warringah Freeway, North Sydney to Gosford Interchange near Kariong; Henry Parry Drive, Wyoming to Pacific Motorway at Ourimbah Interchange; Wyong Road, Tuggerah to Hunter Street, Wickham; and Maitland Road, Warrabrook to the state border with Queensland.

[10] Since February 2013, the freeway section of the highway north of Brunswick Heads is also concurrently gazetted and is named and signposted Pacific Motorway.

[11] The remaining section within Gosford, between Kariong and Brian McGowan Bridge, was re-gazetted and renamed Central Coast Highway in August 2006.

Prominent bypassed sections of the highway between Hexham and the border include: In May 2009, the portion of the Tugun Bypass (newly opened in June 2008) within New South Wales boundaries was declared as the new alignment of Pacific Highway between Tweed Heads interchange and the Queensland border.

At first, the old Peats Ferry was reinstated to cross the Hawkesbury River, with construction of the bridge not beginning until 1938, due to the Great Depression.

10), running from Hexham, Stroud, Gloucester, Taree, Port Macquarie, Kempsey, Coffs Harbour, South Grafton, Ballina, Byron Bay, Mullumbimby, and Murwillumbah to Tweed Heads,[2] on the same day, 8 August 1928.

Until the 1990s most road freight between Sydney and Brisbane passed along the New England Highway instead, due to the easier topography of the Northern Tablelands it traverses.

Between 1950 and 1967, traffic on Pacific Highway quadrupled due to the attraction of coastal towns between Sydney and Brisbane for retirement living and tourism.

In December 1997, the Ourimbah Creek Road to Kangy Angy stage of the freeway, located 150 m west of the highway, opened to traffic.

[36] Pacific Highway was bypassed and reduced to one lane per direction, and the northbound carriageway and bridge over Ourimbah Creek north of Palmdale Road were removed.

The section of the highway from Cowan to Kariong follows a scenic winding route with varying speed limits, typically 60 or 70 km/h (37 or 43 mph).

Five people died when a bridge over Piles Creek collapsed and the entire section was closed due to subsidence 2 km (1.2 mi) further south.

[6] Continuous dual carriageway, much of it freeway standard, now extends from Mayfield West in Newcastle to the Queensland border.

[56] Warrell Creek bypass opened 29 June 2018[118][120][121][122] In 2007 mounting pressure was placed on the federal government to provide additional funding for the highway.

[179] In January 2012, a ute swerved into the path of a B-double truck, which then veered off-road and crashed into two houses at Urunga.

[180] It was found that the ute driver had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.245, five times over the limit, equal to more than 25 standard drinks.

Much of the danger of Pacific Highway lay in the fact that it contained long stretches of undivided road along which all types of vehicles, including private automobiles, buses, vans and trucks, simultaneously travelled at speeds approaching and in excess of 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph).

This was relieved to an extent by the provision of regular passing lanes, but these did not fully cope with the high level of traffic during holiday periods.

After the 1989 crashes, the investigating coroner, Kevin Waller, recommended that the highway be fully divided along its entire length.

[183] The major intersections of Pacific Highway, spread over 779 kilometres (484 mi) on the eastern seaboard of New South Wales comprise a mix of freeway grade-separated conditions, suburban and urban roads.