Ballarat road works: Cash splashed on water-damaged defacto-highway in Ballan

Fifty individual road repair projects will be completed along the Geelong-Ballan Road from a total of 140 across Western Victoria and 460 across the state - worth $41.3 million.

It means more than one in every 10 repairs funded under the second tranche of the State Government's emergency repair blitz will be spent on the badly water-affected road - a popular shortcut for heavy trucks and SurfCoast-Daylesford-Bendigo holidaymakers.

Chief of Regional Transport for the Department of Transport and Planning Paul Northey said a total of 800m of the 40km road would be replaced.

"Initially we do reactive maintenance which is largely pothole filling.

"That enables the road to be opened again safely, but what we're looking at doing long-term is major asphalt patching or even resurfacing and rebuilding parts of roads - and that will be the long-term fix."

Roads Minister Melissa Horne said the roads would be "built back better" but did not specify how these repairs would take place.

"Late last year we announced $165 million for regional road networks affected by floods," she said.

"$90 million of that has now been spent in the North East and Gippsland as well as other areas of the state.

"Today we have another $41 million that will be allocated to urgent road repairs underway across major freight and travel routes."

The Minister said the west was the focus for much of the work ahead because it had taken some time for those roads to adequately dry.

Other roads due for repair included the Western, Midland, Glenelg and Sunraysia highways as well as the Mortlake-Ararat, Dimboola-Rainbow, Elmore-Raywood and Cobden-Terang roads.

More than 370 roads across the state are still closed due to flood damage.

"Since October a crew of 500 workers has worked tirelessly, delivering repairs across Victoria," Ms Horne said.

"More 120km of asphalting and rebuilding works have been completed - and a further 80km of work is underway."

The to-do list included four-other state-managed roads and 350 that were council-controlled.

In fact, 63 of Victoria's 79 Local Government areas had asked for help water-damaged roads.

Back on Geelong-Ballan Road, a section north of Anakie has suffered a major landslip and is down to one steep winding lane, which Mr Northey said should be repaired by late March.

For months, traffic has had to stop at temporary stop lights in each direction to take it turns using what's left of the collapsed road.

He pleaded with drivers to be patient - and slow down.

"We really encourage people driving in regional Victoria to observe the reduced speed limits - our road people are working very hard," he said.

"We want those road workers to stay safe and get home to their family and friends."

Mr Northey said the flood-damage repairs were on top of a $468 million annual budget to take care of 19,000km of roads across regional Victoria.

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