 The 1960s standard of a twenty @-@ foot ( 6 @.@ 2 m ) sealed width with four @-@ foot @-@ wide ( 1 @.@ 2 m ) gravel shoulders was proving to be inadequate by the 1980s . Increasing numbers of truck and tourist coaches caused fretting , and reduced the actual sealed width to 5 @.@ 6 metres ( 18 ft ) along much of Eyre Highway . Main Roads in Western Australia spent around a million dollars a year on rehabilitating 50 @-@ to @-@ 100 @-@ kilometre ( 30 to 60 mi ) sections . A major project to improve Eyre Highway , rather than just repair the damage , began in 1984 with federal government funding to reconstruct 300 kilometres ( 190 mi ) in Western Australia . 
