How do they justify spending millions of dollars on traffic studies but then get it so wrong when they build these roads?
It keeps happening every time. I can remember this being the case when the M5 was built. From day one the two lane road was not enough and it was congested every day. Since then, every new motorway built has had the same problems.
Now they built all these new tunnels and flyovers at Rozelle and ended up with worse traffic problems than they had before.
Much of the confusion there apparently lies with the signing - the Iron Cove Link is actually free, but people see âTunnel, to M8 [Toll] Airportâ or something like - and a lot of people are just avoiding it because they see the yellow Toll patch and go ânahâ.
Iâm not sure itâs even signed as the main road going in the other direction, too, it was to be signed as just âTo Victoria Roadâ and not take the latterâs number through the bit itâs supposed to bypass.
It was always expected to be messy in the first week or two⌠but of course the newspapers need something to write, so why not tap into the local venting.
The local traffic thing will be something to judge longer-term, in a similar vein to when they narrowed Epping Road to push people onto the Lane Cove Tunnel - not in four days.
Also please, NSW, stop just signing everything like this as âTunnelâ, based on your style guide, even that makes people think it is a toll road, as toll roads that have a number generally donât get signed with their name, like they do in say Queensland.
See how Northconnex lost its name being signed when replaced with simply âM11 Tunnelâ in the past couple of months, as an example.
It needs to be because certain vehicles carrying dangerous goods are prohibited from using tunnels.
Oh I get why, but they are not named on signs, is what I mean. Like in Brisbane they at least sign the names of motorways and tunnels (eg. Legacy Way Tunnel, Clem Jones Tunnel)⌠NSW has very rarely done that, especially so on a toll road with a number - the Cross City Tunnel and (originally) Northconnex were two examples of the latter.
Then again, going west, for most of the destinations that the Iron Cove Link could take you to, theyâd rather you take the M4. Iâm not sure âTunnel - Drummoyneâ without a number (they havenât moved Victoria Roadâs number onto it yet) helps anyone.
It still surprises me how Sydneyâs freeways are mostly (or until some years ago were) just 2 lanes in each direction, including tunnels and recently opened ones are still the same.
Add to that how convoluted the network is, especially the inner-city to the south of the Harbour, as well as the density of roads/buildings/population (including where the new WestConnex underground âspaghettiâ has opened).
Itâs just so ill planned and a mess.
Itâs messy but way better than it was in the 90s when I lived there.
I was actually a bit shocked when I moved there from Brisbane. In Brisbane even in the 80s there was a freeway that went right into the CBD from the south (ie. Gold Coast). I remember relatives visiting from Sydney in the late 80s who were gobsmacked the SE freeway went right into the city centre. Sydney didnât have that from any direction into the city centre. From the north the freeway stopped at Hornsby! And to get on a freeway heading west or south it was also a trek from the CBD.
And by the early 90s Brisbane had the Gateway ring road meaning you could go from the Gold Coast through Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast without a single set of traffic lights and one $2 toll. A distance of over 160km. Sydney had nothing remotely like that.
Sydney has had a massive catch up but itâs come at a price of huge tolls.
I just did some quick research, looks like Brisbane was the first Australian state capital to have a freeway that went all the way into the CBD (being the South East Freeway that first opened in 1972). It has been extended a couple of times and Brisbane CBD to Coomera became a non stop 4 lane highway/freeway by 1985.
Perth has a had a freeway into the CBD since 1973, with a number of extensions both north and south since.
Melbourne didnât get a freeway into the CBD (Southbank) until 2000 when the Burnley tunnel first opened.
And Adelaide wonât get one until 2031 when the North/South Motorway is completed! Even that only skirts the very edge of the CBD at Mile End.
Have Sydney or Brisbane ever commissioned a PPP?
Melbourneâs Peninsula Link (which opened over a decade ago now at the start of 2013) was one of these, partially privately funded (Southern Way consortium) and operated by Service Stream (formerly Lend Lease) with its own control room, etc. Will revert to state government at the end of this decade I believe. This âmissing linkâ for decades completed one of Victoriaâs oldest freeways, the Mornington Peninsula Fwy (which started at Springvale Rd in Aspendale Gardens and ended at the Frankston Fwy to the north and re-commenced at the Moorooduc Hwy in Mt Martha and ended at Rosebud to the south). It recently extended again to the north, the âMordialloc Freewayâ as itâs locally known which now goes from Springvale Rd to the Dingley Bypass in Dingley Village. The entire route is also called the âM11â (previously Metro shield 11). Itâs become very popular and is considered to be one of Melbourneâs best and safest major arterials, right up there with EastLink (opened 2008), however unlike EastLink was only built to 2 lanes each way (given its technical outer suburban/non-metro location and lower traffic volumes), but has since boomed, especially post-COVID with many moving down to the Peninsula, regularly (daily) experiencing bottlenecks around the EastLink junction and further back to the new Mordialloc Fwy and during nice weather on weekends for day trips or holiday periods (coming up) congestion for pretty much the entire length. Years ago they also opened a twin Service Centre on the freeway near Baxter, further causing busy conditions. It has however made the Moorooduc Hwy much quieter and somewhat obsolete.
So anyway, this link is otherwise very much like a tollway, but itâs actually just a freeway (no tolls). If federal-state governmentâs canât fully fund, there are these alternate options to fully privately funded (AKA full toll roads).
You do love an acronym but you canât expect everyone to know every acronym under the sun. KWIM?
Public Private Partnership
I canât say Iâve ever heard that term used but it does happen. I believe the M7 ring road was one of them.
Generally, almost every Motorway development has been a mess.
Speaking of which, I am still surprised that its northern end with Dingley Bypass was built as a T intersection, with a pedestrian crossing on the eastern side. I think there is scope to rebuild it as a free flowing interchange.
In the 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan, Dingley Bypass (marked as F2) was meant to continue through Moorabbin and Brighton to Beach Road, then turn north under Barkly Street, Punt Road and Merri Creek to join Hume Freeway and M80 Ring Road at Thomastown. While the northern section was abandoned, I think the southern section can be realigned at St Kilda, so it goes between Albert Park Lake and Beaconsfield Parade then Port Melbourne, to join the interchange of West Gate Freeway and CityLink (Bolte Bridge).
Meanwhile here in Tasmania - whatâs a freeway? 
Yes, the Harbour Tunnel was one - Westconnex started as one
I believe after the West Gate Tunnel & freeway re-development project and North-East Link, plus the Metro Tunnel and Suburban Rail Loop, save for a coalition govt bringing back an East West Link, theyâll be setting their sights on this new Outer Metropolitan Ring Road (also reported for decades since that late 60s mapping).
Essentially, commencing south of Werribee at Melbourneâs urban limits from the Princes Freeway, then at a diameter of about 20km west of the current Western/Metropolitan Ring Road (or M80 or whatever they want you to call it now - most just say the Wâtern Ring Rd or simply Ring Rd), and traversing adjacent to that freeway at that diameter, intersecting with multiple other freeways the Western, Calder and Hume and then finishing somewhere around Thomastown connecting to the Metro Ring Road (east of the Hume jcn).
The idea will be to take as many commercial and heavy vehicles off the metro fwy network and completely avoid the city limits, say if coming from Sydney and need to get to Geelong or south-west Vic or Bendigo or Mildura or Ballarat or South Australia and in turn lower volumes on other arterials and reduce congestion and create better safety. It could create an issue with local townsâ residents in standard cars / SUVs / 4x4s wanting to take advantage and use it as well though for similar destinations or to rat run and avoid M80 and other congestion, as you canât just forbid them from using it.
Iâm pretty sure another was the original Western Distributor here (or mightâve even been fully government funded), which wouldâve seen heavy vehicles taken off the West Gate Fwy (before the Bridge) and funnelled onto arterials around the heavy industrial areas near Spotswood/Yarraville/Seddon/West Melb for the ports. Until Transurban put their hand up and proposed a new project the current West Gate Tunnel (which is longer, provides end to end freeway connections and of course majority is twin three lane underground tunnels).
I think the East West Link was also going to be a PPP, but could be mistaken. Still canât believe taxpayers had to fork out $1b just to not see a road built, just days after Dan Andrews won the 2014 election teared it up âitâs not worth the paper its written onâ infamously, though the entire project was a bit dodgy and Andrews did have some valid criticisms, but the way it got executed was just disgraceful.
The upgrade of the old Eastern Fwy, which was to be a part of the East West Link, has now been folded into the current North East Link project, which also includes a huge tunnel for most of its length, under Melbourneâs north east (getting vehicles including heavy off Greensborough Rd>Lwr Plenty Rd>Rosanna Rd>Banksia St>Bulleen Rd).
NSW Roads Minister John Graham said this morning trucks working on government construction projects at Rozelle such as a Metro West station would be diverted from the City West Link between 7am and 9.30am to ease congestion at the troubled Rozelle Interchange.
Inner West Council has organised a public meeting to be held at Balmain Town Hall next Thursday (December 7) at 6.30pm to address the issue.
UPDATE
Itâs unfair to judge the road on the first week of it being open - nearly all major road projects bring some kind of chaos in the early days of their existence, as people get a better understanding of the changes weâll see it return to ânormalâ
Iâve heard that on top of (and separately to) the Rozelle changes related to the interchange, Transport for NSW made additional changes to the Bus Lane configurations that havenât helped the situation either. Iâm told the left hand didnt talk to the right hand either
Adding additional lanes isnât the panacea people think it is - it can have a significant inflationary effect on the number of road users.
The newer tunnels have expansion capacity factored in to add an additional lane
Not sure I completely agree, nor see what benefit it brings. If the route has an alphanumeric, it doesnât need a name in addition.
Northconnex should never have been signposted as such unless that was its intended route name or it should have had its Alphanumeric for when it opened.
Yep I thought Perth would be pretty close to Brisbane in terms of a freeway into the CBD. Brisbane also had a planned northern freeway which was scrapped in the 70s that would have gone in to the CBD. It has largely been completed as a toll tunnel (Airport Link) this century. The Western Freeway although built in the late 70s never made it into the CBD until the tolled Legacy Way/Inner City Bypass was added.
As much as I was impressed with the SE Freeway going into the CBD, I always thought the Gateway motorway non-stop bypass of Brisbane connecting to freeways to both coasts was an amazing achievement and well ahead of its time in this country anyway.
The Outer Metropolitan Ring Road is not a true ring road, simply because the eastern section will go south to join the existing M80 Ring Road near Thomastown. The two ring roads needs to be kept apart.
Since the OMR is a long-term concept anyway, I suggest the Victorian Government should go bold and change the proposed route of the eastern section. My suggestion is that after the Hume Freeway interchange, the OMR goes into a series of long tunnels, beneath Yan Yean, Kangaroo Ground, Mooroolbark, Dandenong Ranges and Berwick, and re-emerge at Princes Freeway (Pakenham Bypass) at Officer. It then turn south-west and go roughly parallel with the existing Baxter-Tooradin Road, connecting to Peninsula Link at Baxter.
I love this concept as it would make Gippsland so much more accessible from the rest of Victoria (where thereâs no alternative to going through Melbourne now).
With how much of an appetite we have for investment in infrastructure in this country though, I canât see it happening this side of the year 2270 unfortunately.