Drilling has begun on the second stage of Sydney’s long-planned Western Harbour Tunnel, with the first roadheader machine breaking through sandstone in Cammeray on Monday.
Once complete, the tunnel will connect motorists between the Warringah Freeway and Rozelle Interchange, allowing motorists travelling between the north and west to bypass traffic in the CBD, linking to the junction of dozens of tunnels under Rozelle. The government hopes it will ease congestion on the Harbour Bridge, Harbour Tunnel, Anzac Bridge and Western Distributor.
The 100-tonne road header began tunnelling on the second stage of the Western Harbour Tunnel at Cammeray.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
The tunnel was initially planned to be attached to the Beaches Link, the motorway connecting the city to the northern beaches. But Labor ditched the project in September amid increasing pressure on the state’s budget and advice from Transport for NSW. Roads Minister John Graham said spending $10 billion on the link would be “irresponsible” in the current economic climate.
The first tunnelling work commenced in Cammeray on Monday, as a 100-tonne road header cut through Sydney’s famed sandstone. It is set to cut through 1000 tonnes of rock every day, getting between 20 to 25 metres closer to the harbour each week.
Once it reaches the water, a tunnel-boring machine will be used to dig through bedrock until it reaches Birchgrove on the southern side of the harbour.
The first stage of the tunnel project, cutting the tunnel from Rozelle to Birchgrove, has begun and is due to be completed in 2025.
The Western Harbour Tunnel will connect the north and south between Waverton and Birchgrove.Credit: NSW Government
Original plans showed the government had prepared to lay tubes on the harbour floor, but the Herald revealed last year that machines the width of three lanes of traffic would instead be used below the floor.
The road header that began drilling is one of the 10-metre-tall orange and yellow machines to be used across the project. A sea urchin-like ball, with dozens of metal points, rubs away at the sandstone as a huge air vent removes the dust.
Each road header weighs more than 100 tonnes, which the government claimed was the equivalent of 27 elephants (based on the average size of an adult African elephant, although these animals can be anywhere from two to seven tonnes). Engineers will rotate through the 10 machines to keep the drills sharp.
Premier Chris Minns said the tunnel would knock 20 minutes off journeys between North Sydney and Leichhardt or Sydney Olympic Park.
“It’s essential for Sydney’s road network, and I think it’s a recognition that as we grow, as more people move into Sydney’s CBD, we need the infrastructure to cope with changing travel patterns,” he said.
The project, due to open by 2028, is due to cost $6.7 billion – a blowout of more than $1.4 billion. The roads minister defended the budget, saying it was “confirmed that as we came into government early on, that [there] was a blowout in the original projections”.
But Minns said the “real problem is lowballing the original estimate when these projects are announced”, criticising the former Coalition government for setting an unrealistic budget and timeframe.
On a ledge near the entrance of the site is a small wooden hut that houses a 30-centimetre-tall statue of Saint Barbara, the Catholic patron saint of miners and others associated with dangerous work. More than 7000 people are expected to work on the project across its lifetime.
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