In 1914 the road was declared a main road of New South Wales, and subsequently designated as state highway 2 and named the Hume Highway in 1928. The highway bypassed Gundagai in 1977 with the opening of the Sheahan Bridge. Fords and former bridges There are several old fords at Gundagai, including: the one at the western end of Hanley Street that crosses Jones Creek a ford on the southern continuation of Bourke Street across Jones Creek one at the western end of Sheridan Lane that crosses Jones Creek a ford at the western end of William Street that crosses Jones Creek the Otway Street ford across Morleys Creek a 1950s concrete ford that crosses Morleys Creek on the immediate western side of Yarri Bridge a very old ford that crosses Morleys Creek east of the Yarri Bridge the Warramore Ford that crosses the Murrumbidgee across to Tarrabandra between the Gundagai showground and Mingay the Sandy Falls ford the ford across Muttama Creek at the Nine Mile, Coolac, that is a well noted crossing place in local poetry, folklore and history the Gundagai township ford of the Murrumbidgee in line with Otway Street 'Adelong Crossing Place', now 'Tumblong', where there used to be a ford across Adelong Creek There is also the Wantabadgery crossing place that these days has been replaced by the low level Mundarlo Bridge, downstream of Gundagai. Often bridges have replaced fords but not always in exactly the same location, as bridges require high stream banks, whereas fords favour low banks. Two known old bridges on Morleys Creek no longer exist. Learys Bridge, a wooden bridge that crossed Morleys Creek in line with Byron Street, Gundagai was burned down by Gundagai Shire Council in the 1990s. Rileys Bridge that crossed Morleys Creek at the midpoint between Byron and Homer Streets was washed away in the 1851 Gundagai flood. Bridges In 1865, a wrought iron truss bridge, the Prince Alfred Bridge, was completed across the Murrumbidgee River. The bridge was designed by William Christopher Bennett and was constructed by Francis Bell and Frederick Augustus Franklin and had a total length of 314 m, including three wrought iron truss spans each of 31.4 m across the river itself, two southern approach spans of timber, and twenty-three northern approach spans of 9.14 m, also of timber, rising on a gradient of 1 in 30 from the level of the floodplain.