Until the 1950s it formed part of the main traffic route between Brisbane and Sydney. The coastal route (now the Pacific Highway) was not favoured due to the large number of ferry crossings of the wide coastal rivers, the frequency and severity of flooding of these rivers and the consequent poor state of much of the road for extended periods, and its steep, winding nature as it crossed the intermediate hills between each river valley. In the mid-1950s a sealed road was constructed west from Boonah through Cunninghams Gap to Warwick, and this supplanted the Mount Lindesay Highway as the main Brisbane - Sydney traffic route as far south as Tenterfield. This in turn has since the 1980s been supplanted by the Pacific Highway as the major Brisbane - Sydney route, as a result of extensive upgrading and deviations of the Pacific Highway.