It rises up the Darling Scarp at Red Hill and travels through the easternmost section of the City of Swan.
It was decided that it would be a good opportunity to rename the road to reflect the name change of Newcastle to Toodyay which had occurred in 1910.
[2] There are long-term plans to bypass Great Eastern Highway's current ascent of the Darling Scarp, using part of Toodyay Road.
The ultimate design of the highway includes grade separated interchanges for all of the roads that it intersects.
The project was not in the forward works program, there was no indication of the expected starting date, and no recent cost analysis had been undertaken.