Queensland's Department of Transport and Main Roads will close roads and jeopardise crucial Sunshine Coast businesses including the former "Ettamogah" pub and Aussie World theme park on the Bruce Highway.
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A large interchange from Caloundra Road linked to the proposal will also see 36,600 trees, a food source for koalas, destroyed in "critically endangered" sub-tropical rainforest, local conservationist groups say.
The Sunshine Coast's "Ettamogah" pub, the second of its type built in Australia after the famous Ken Maynard cartoon strip of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, opened in 1989. Owners handed in the licence to the "Ettamogah" brand last year.
Many of the businesses nearby have been there for almost 25 years.
The department plans to close the on and off ramps from the Bruce Highway at Palmview on the Sunshine Coast that now lead directly to these businesses as it widens the highway to six lanes.
Sunshine Coast businessman Steve Amos who has run the independently owned Aussie World Garage next to the pub for 25 years is furious.
Mr Amos says the department is closing roads that keep his business alive because of an even further widening to eight lanes in the future.
"So they are removing 50 per cent of my potential business for something that may happen in three or four decades," Mr Amos said.
Almost 2.2 million vehicles, 60,000 per day, drive past his garage every year.
More than 7000 people have signed a petition calling for the Department of Transport and Main Roads not to close the on and off ramps.
Mr Amos said the ramps sit between the Caloundra Road interchange and the Sunshine Coast Motorway interchange.
"The alternate is to upgrade the Caloundra interchange, upgrade the Sunshine Coast Motorway interchange and to widen the highway between both of those interchanges," Mr Amos said.
"And to leave our on and off ramps alone."
The ramp closures are a small part of a massive $500 million upgrade of the Caloundra Rd interchange and Bruce Highway widening for four to six lanes.
On the northbound side of the Bruce Highway the Department of Transport and Main Roads plans to close the off-ramp to Frizzo Road, home to about 20 businesses.
On the southbound side of the Bruce Highway this Pignato Road will no longer be connected.
Under the plans motorists would have to access these businesses by a yet-to-be built new western bypass which plans to cut through a section of rainforest on the Sunshine Coast.
That new western bypass will destroy 25 hectares of rainforest where the new Caloundra Road interchange leaves the Bruce Highway, Mr Amos said.
The proposal to destroy the area of rainforest has already triggered an investigation into its biodiversity, the Sunshine Coast Environment Council said.
Spokeswoman Narelle McCarthy said the Sunshine Coast Environment Council had identified 36,608 trees, a food source for the koalas, that will be destroyed in the sub-tropical lowland rainforest.
"We understand that road infrastructure and improvements are needed from time to time," Ms McCarthy said.
"But this is inappropriate and unnecessary in scale and impact," she said.
"It is possible to deliver the safety outcomes without the level that this current design proposes."
A Department of Transport and Main Roads spokeswoman said the plan was to make travel along that section of the Bruce Highway safer.
"The western service road will separate regional and local traffic and provide safer access to properties on the western side of the highway," a spokeswoman said.
"DTMR investigations have found that retaining the ramps has the potential to create conflict for motorists with lane changing and merging movements."
The department did not answer questions about the impact on the old pub, the Aussie World theme park or the other 18 businesses.
It also did not answer questions about the impact of clearing 25 hectares of rainforest at the Caloundra Interchange.
