AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

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mubd1234
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AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

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Imageclick for larger image

So Sydney's road network has been growing pretty rapidly over the past few years. Record infrastructure investment in roads and public transport mean that quite a few major projects are in the pipeline.

So to start off, the first three projects are part of Westconnex:
Capture.JPG
1. M4 East - this is due to open next month. It extends the current M4 Motorway a few kilometres east to the City West Link, which bypasses a congested urban section of Parramatta Road. This means that motorists will be able to access the city exclusively via limited-access roads (albeit still with at-grade intersections) using the City West Link. The City West Link will be bypassed by the M4-M5 Link (see below).

2. New M5 East - due to open next year. This effectively duplicates a notoriously bad section of the existing 7km long M5 East Tunnel, which was opened in 2001. A combination of the tunnel originally being designed to be a toll road (with lower associated traffic levels), as well as steep gradients mean that this road runs well underspeed all day from 6am to 8pm, and is totally gridlocked at peaks. The new tunnel, however, will not connect to Sydney's main port access roads, so for a few years until the next section is complete, this will end at a dead end in an inner city suburb. Access roads will be upgraded for the opening of the new road, but I expect the vast majority of people will continue to use the existing road.

3. M4 - M5 Link - due to open in 2023. This will initially hook up the M4 East and the new M5 East to provide a bypass of the city, but its real function will come when the Western Harbour Tunnel and F6 extension are built, becoming the main north-south backbone of Sydney's motorway network. At its widest point, it will be ten lanes in each direction.

4. NorthConnex - This is due to open early next year. It's a 9km 6 lane tunnel which links the main motorway north out of Sydney with Sydney's motorway network at the M2. It has a stub tunnel at the southern interchange which is speculated to be for a future connection to the limited access section of the A6, which extends out to Silverwater Bridge.

5. Beaches Link and Western Harbour Tunnel

This is still in the planning stages, but the current government has recently been re-elected so I can see it most likely going ahead. Beaches Link will connect the lower end of the Northern Beaches (currently only connected to the rest of Sydney by a four lane drawbridge!) with a motorway tunnel to the Warringah Freeway. Western Harbour Tunnel will bypass the city to the west and connect to the Rozelle Interchange (which is probably going to be one of the world's most complex fully underground motorway to motorway interchanges...). You can see a diagram of the interchange here - https://i.redd.it/j7irmpxujs7z.jpg.

6. Sydney Gateway

This is a partially underground, partially elevated road which will will serve the dual purpose of replacing the existing access road between the domestic and international terminals at Sydney Airport, as well as connecting the terminals directly to the motorway network at the St Peters interchange.

7. M12 Motorway

This is a motorway in the far western suburbs designed to connect the existing M7 Motorway to the new International Airport. Still in early planning stages, but will certainly be built considering the amount of federal and state government backing for the airport project.

8. M9 Motorway (Outer Sydney Orbital)

This one is a bit pie-in-the-sky at the moment. Very early consultation stages on which corridor the road will eventually take. At present, only the section between the Hume Motorway deep at the southern end of the Sydney metropolitan area and the Western Sydney Airport has been confirmed.

9. F6 Extension

At present, this consists of a short link between the new M5 East Tunnel and President Avenue Brighton-Le-Sands, which will bypass Brighton-Le-Sands and Kyeemagh. The "F6 Corridor" which the name refers to is an old expressway corridor which was abandoned in the 1970s, which was to connect the F6 Freeway with the Sydney CBD. Most of it still exists as parkland.

At present, the main motorway south to Wollongong ends right at the edge of the Sydney metropolitan area. The government have flagged plans for new tunnels to be built underneath the F6 Corridor, but have not firmly committed to anything beyond this short 5km tunnel.

From what I can read on Wikipedia, if the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link go ahead (which they most likely will), the section of motorway between the New M5 East and the Beaches Link Tunnel will be the longest section of road tunnel in the world, at around 30km of continuous tunnel. If more of the F6 Tunnels are built, that record would extend even further!
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ChrisH
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by ChrisH »

Thanks for this - it's very interesting. I've tried to find a one-page summary of these plans before but never managed.

Have you considered using Google My Maps to make this a little easier to see and interpret?
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by Truvelo »

I assume Rozelle Interchange won't affect any of the houses above it? I can't imagine such a junction being built in an urban area consuming so many houses would be considered in this day and age.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by NSWP »

Great update on Sydney new road network, in particular the Orbital. Might end up bigger than ye olde M25 !! :o :shock:

Bring your money with you for the tolls, although they are all cashless, if you know what I mean. you have to set up an account. :twisted:
Cheers..LES

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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by sydneynick »

During the past week or so, I have driven most of the Hume Motorway from Shepparton to Sydney. Most of it in NSW is not what would be regarded as a motorway in the UK. There are many at-grade junctions with minor roads and innumerable entries to farms and other properties. This is acceptable in view of the low traffic volumes, and probably inevitable in that the properties need road access. In some stretches in Victoria, access roads have been built on both sides of the motorway, but this is an expensive option.

Where the road has been built on a completely new alignment, it is usually fully grade-separated, as in the Goulburn by-pass and between Bowral and Sydney. But not always. After an overnight stop in Yass, I was startled to find an at-grade T-junction where the old highway joined the new one.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by Peter Freeman »

NSWP wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 05:07 … the Orbital. Might end up bigger than ye olde M25 !! :o :shock:
A complete circuit of Sydney Orbital would be about 110km (my rough estimate), whereas M25 is 117 miles, so I don't think so.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by bart »

It's really quite amazing the amount of road-building that's happened in and around Sydney in the past 20 years or so. But I think I read somewhere that the money collected in tolls is much less than expected (I think it was specifically about the Lane Cove Tunnel). Are these new roads supposed to be self-funding from future tolls, or has that been given up on?
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by Peter Freeman »

AU's toll road history is a chequered one. Certain projects have been instantly successful, largely because they fulfilled strongly-suppressed demand. Example in this first group: Transurban's Citylink in Melbourne. (As an aside, much was made of little-publicised clauses concerning compensation to the operator for government improvements to parallel roads, etc, and discouragement from using those alternatives, but in practise this was never an issue and those clauses have been deleted since other projects have linked in).

Some notorious examples exist of another group of projects that were the other way round: instant failures. Example: Sydney's Cross-City Tunnel. Simply over-optimistic traffic predictions, and readily-available alternate routes. It's a great road now though!

A large third group were in the middle: not quite paying their way, leading to either re-financing, or bankruptcy and sale. Examples: Melbourne's Eastlink (refinanced, traffic and economics now ok, and looking to a bright future after the opening of Peninsula Link and with the impending construction of the North-East link); and Brisbane's two pieces of M7 - still not really busy, but economically viable now (I think - not too sure …).

The way I look at this is that we have some fabulous pieces of infrastructure in our three largest cities, which is a very different situation from when I migrated to AU 40 years ago. Much more is coming. I'd rather NOT have tolls, and with more sensible politics we wouldn't need to since governments can borrow large amounts of money more cheaply than private institutions can. But whatever economic route, with private misfortunes, has led us here, I love the convenience and driving enjoyment of using these facilities, as I think most Sabristi on this forum would.

I can afford the tolls. Some can't or would rather not, and therefore take the older, longer, slower routes. This is ok: my use of the tollway has decongested those routes. Tollways work for all, and seem to be, politically, a necessary evil here.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by crazyknightsfan »

Truvelo wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 22:18 I assume Rozelle Interchange won't affect any of the houses above it? I can't imagine such a junction being built in an urban area consuming so many houses would be considered in this day and age.
Most of it is underground, with the above-ground bits (e.g. ramps to surface roads) making use of a substantial disused rail goods yard. I believe the plan is to cover over as much as possible to create public parkland once the work is complete.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by NSWP »

The West Connex opened up the other day, Parramatta to Ashfield, Sydney. Bypasses a lot of traffic control light signals. Albeit at a cost, $7 something like that.
Cheers..LES

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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by mubd1234 »

My vid of the new tunnel:

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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by sydneynick »

It is interesting that the opening of the M4 tunnel has also decongested Parramatta Road so that it is quite free-flowing apart from traffic lights. It used to be very congested from Burwood to the start of the motorway. But the tunnel is faster.

The cost for the new tunnel is a bit over $4. I think the $7 toll is for the full length of the tolled part of the motorway, from Ashfield/Haberfield to Parramatta.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by Peter Freeman »

mubd1234 wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2019 09:05 3. M4 - M5 Link - due to open in 2023. This will initially hook up the M4 East and the new M5 East to provide a bypass of the city, but its real function will come when the Western Harbour Tunnel and F6 extension are built, becoming the main north-south backbone of Sydney's motorway network. At its widest point, it will be ten lanes in each direction.
2 x 5 = 10 total, I think? Still plenty wide though!

Your video of the M4 tunnel - very nice.

By the way, in a recent Sabre thread about upgrading Western Avenue it was suggested that London's Westway could be tunnelled eastwards to join the A12 at Stratford. Quite a 'fantasy roads' thought of course. But I roughly worked out, using tunnel lengths and number of lanes, that the current and planned (most virtually committed) Sydney tunnels are equivalent to London completing the 1960's 'motorway box' - underground. That's the North Cross Route and the South Cross Route, plus the missing southern piece of the West Cross Route over the river, plus another bore or two to bolster Blackwall Tunnel … !
Last edited by Peter Freeman on Wed Nov 13, 2019 00:57, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

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Peter Freeman wrote: Fri Nov 08, 2019 08:02By the way, in a recent Sabre thread about upgrading Western Avenue it was suggested that London's Westway could be tunnelled eastwards to join the A12 at Stratford.
It was also seriously suggested by Boris Johnson, when he was Mayor of London, and TfL produced a sketch diagram of it as part of his tunnelled inner ring road plan. Needless to say it has gone the same way as the Garden Bridge, the Channel bridge and all his other daft ideas.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by Peter Freeman »

mubd1234 wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2019 09:05
... 4. NorthConnex - This is due to open early next year. It's a 9km 6 lane tunnel which links the main motorway [M1 Pacific Motorway] north out of Sydney with Sydney's motorway network at the M2. It has a stub tunnel at the southern interchange which is speculated to be for a future connection to the limited access section of the A6, which extends out to Silverwater Bridge. ...
I think those stub tunnels are for a future underground free-flow to M2 east - no? It's a pity they didn't include them in this initial phase.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by Berk »

NSWP wrote: Tue Jun 11, 2019 05:07 Great update on Sydney new road network, in particular the Orbital. Might end up bigger than ye olde M25 !! :o :shock:

Bring your money with you for the tolls, although they are all cashless, if you know what I mean. you have to set up an account. :twisted:
If you’re a tourist, your rental company pass your card details onto the toll operator.

You literally don’t need to do a thing.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by crazyknightsfan »

Peter Freeman wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2020 07:06
mubd1234 wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2019 09:05
... 4. NorthConnex - This is due to open early next year. It's a 9km 6 lane tunnel which links the main motorway [M1 Pacific Motorway] north out of Sydney with Sydney's motorway network at the M2. It has a stub tunnel at the southern interchange which is speculated to be for a future connection to the limited access section of the A6, which extends out to Silverwater Bridge. ...
I think those stub tunnels are for a future underground free-flow to M2 east - no? It's a pity they didn't include them in this initial phase.
Correct, they were added in response to numerous comments at EIS stage wanting this connection.
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Re: AUS - Sydney's Motorway Network

Post by Peter Freeman »

crazyknightsfan wrote: Mon Feb 03, 2020 05:24
Peter Freeman wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2020 07:06
mubd1234 wrote: Sat Jun 08, 2019 09:05
... 4. NorthConnex - This is due to open early next year. It's a 9km 6 lane tunnel which links the main motorway [M1 Pacific Motorway] north out of Sydney with Sydney's motorway network at the M2. It has a stub tunnel at the southern interchange which is speculated to be for a future connection to the limited access section of the A6, which extends out to Silverwater Bridge. ...
I think those stub tunnels are for a future underground free-flow to M2 east - no? It's a pity they didn't include them in this initial phase.
Correct, they were added in response to numerous comments at EIS stage wanting this connection.
However ... an extension of the NorthConnex Tunnel, southwards to the intersection of Silverwater Road (A6) and Kissing Point Road, would also be useful. Perhaps those current stubs, when eventually connected to M2 east, should include sub-stubs ready for such a further possibility. That A6 intersection has space around it and to its north-east, seemingly to allow the connection of another road.
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