Rozelle Interchange is ground zero for NSW’s infrastructure ills

The nightmare that is Sydney’s Rozelle Interchange is filtering past state borders. It will fire fears that mega projects are only made to benefit those that profit from them.

The lines snaking from the western suburbs start well before 5am, with tradies mostly trying to get into city sites and beyond over to the east.

Then later from the northern leafy suburbs like Gladesville, the cars are queued right back through to the bridge that bears the same name, with city commuters seeing their daily morning run savagely blown out.

Sydney’s Rozelle Interchange opened last week. Photo: Supplied

This all happens when Sydney is running at well below capacity, with offices running at half steam as city workers stay at home on most days.

Welcome to Sydney’s infrastructure nightmare. What was meant to be a marvel of engineering and the city’s can-do attitude has rapidly morphed into a white-hot anger.

Most Australians live outside of Sydney, however the Rozelle Interchange is a name starting to filter past state borders. At $4bn to build, it remains a question of how could NSW get something so big so wrong? Rather, the more worrying question is, ‘will we ever get our infrastructure right?’

It’s easy to see why Rozelle Interchange has been dubbed the spaghetti junction. It all happens underground across 24 kilometres of road where the new (tolled) M4 extension known as WestConnex intersects with the new (tolled) M8 to the airport and beyond. There’s new entry points allowing inner westies or indeed anyone from the east and north to jump on the M4 west or head south to the airport. It also scoops crawling traffic from Anzac Bridge to get drivers faster out to the western suburbs, or indeed those coming in and avoiding the calcified Parramatta Rd completely.

NSW Minister for Roads John Graham Picture: NCA NewsWire

Except for a new tunnel bypassing Victoria Rd and giving a miss to the clogged streets of Balmain, the road network is fully tolled with Transurban to become operator as part of its $10bn WestConnex deal two years ago. Rozelle has been the missing link to the already-finished WestConnex toll road network.

To be clear Transurban and its big partner AustralianSuper are not the builder of Rozelle.

But new Transurban chief executive Michelle Jablko has inherited part of the reputational mess from the NSW Government. The project and design was 100 per cent funded and delivered by agency Transport for NSW.

The $4bn project is complex in every way. It sits metres from the waterfront and is said to be as tall as the M4 and M7 interchange out west, and it all happens underground. There’s a myriad of entry and exits, all feeding onto Transurban’s toll road network.

Indeed, traffic funnelling from the northern and western roads is slated to drive Transurban’s next leg of growth. The toll road operator manages the roads underground of Rozelle while Transport for NSW manages the free roads above ground. Transurban too has pushed back on suggestions there are contractural rules about how many lanes need to feed into the underground network.

However, like all big infrastructure projects, it has been disruption hell for motorists over the past four years of construction. It’s forced convoys of trucks and their trailers onto city roads around the clock and has up-ended commutes with sudden overnight road changes. But it was the opening when the mayhem started for those who don’t want to pay the $11.11 toll for a single trip, or $33.32 for trucks. Locals too, who have no use for the toll road were caught out, with multiple lanes being merged into one to get onto the Anzac Bridge. This stunningly stupid design has caused the alarming pinch points in the west and north directions. For many in the surrounding suburbs, it has been impossible to get onto the (free) arterials that for years have funnelled traffic into the city.

Other problems include cars being spat out onto right lanes of the bridge where they needed to be in the left to make their exit. This requires dangerous merges for both toll and non-toll road users during the morning rush.

Anyone who watched construction progress over the years could see the disaster was unfolding while the project was taking shape. It wasn’t just obvious in hindsight.

And with Australia facing a slate of inflation stoking mega-projects, project managers, governments and agencies should be watching closely.

Billions of dollars of planning for green energy generation and batteries remain tied up in the planning stage. Backers of ambitious solar and wind projects have regularly decried the planning impasse and community opposition, meaning many schemes are yet to get off the drawing board.

Lessons from chaos

The problems of Rozelle will only confirm suspicions for those immediately impacted that big projects are designed to benefit those that profit from them rather than the entire community.

Victoria has its own suite of mega infrastructure projects in the pipeline. The biggest being the monster (and much delayed) $10bn West Gate Tunnel project, which has been promised to slash commute times into the city and take thousands of trucks off the road. In this case Transurban is a joint venture partner with the state government. Locals looking at Rozelle need to be reassured their front yard in Melbourne’s inner and western suburbs won’t be the next traffic pinch point.

Elsewhere, construction of the giant North East Link project is underway that promises to divert cars heading to the freeway network off suburban streets. Transurban again is eyeing this project, with hopes of bidding for the toll road once the government-backed construction is finished. Victoria too has rail with the suburban loop and on again, off again Airport Rail link. NSW’s opaque Warringah Freeway upgrade is now causing havoc north of the Harbour Bridge, and the state government continues to build stations as part of its new – but needed – metro train project.

The City West Link at Haberfield is gridlocked heading into the city. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Queensland too has the $13bn multi-year Bruce Highway upgrade, although this is all taking place outside the state’s capital.

These will be all dwarfed by the $100bn-plus spend slated for the green energy transition over the next decade and $400bn-plus leading into 2050. Super funds and energy companies AGL, Origin and others have their own plans, while energy minister Chris Bowen last month promised taxpayers would underwrite 32GW of generation and battery storage.

However, it’s projects like Rozelle that show what happen when the community gets left behind. Flops like Rozelle are likely to stoke even more grassroots resistance, and intense opposition will serve to push back completion dates – particularly as we race to 2030.

In the initial days of Rozelle’s opening last week and the scale of the disaster was becoming clear, one roads’ official helpfully suggested irate motorists stuck in traffic try alternatives to get to the city, including Parramatta Rd – Sydney’s famous sclerotic artery.

Other measures to ease the pain have been to a put police cars on each end of the Anzac Bridge for the morning commute. No doubt to remind drivers it is their fault as they attempt to make rapid and dangerous lane changes between buses to get to their destination.

NSW’s struggling roads minister John Graham has said all options were on the table, including a proposal for emergency (and expensive) retrofitting of an additional 400m of lanes.

Rozelle Interchange had led to driver confusion and angered local residents. Picture: Rohan Kelly

It is really all cosmetic stuff and is likely to only push the pinch points further up the roads. Graham has called for an emergency meeting with transport officials on Sunday, although apart from a major redesign and more cop cars there’s probably not much more that can be done.

Inner West mayor Darcy Byrne will convene his own emergency meeting this week. His council has been warning the state government for years about the likely traffic chaos from the problematic design. This “is exactly what we have predicted would occur,” he says.

Moore is smart enough to know all politics is local. This should be a warning to others. After all, the project straddles prime minister Anthony Albanese’s electorate of Grayndler. Albanese was initially closely involved in supporting Rozelle early last decade as infrastructure minister. At a state level Balmain remains a Greens stronghold Balmain while Labor control Summer Hill and Strathfield and the Liberals have a lock on Drummoyne.

No one is prepared to take ownership of the troubled project although, it had been strongly supported through the years from both sides of government.

If this is the result of a mega-project when everyone and all governments are on the same page, imagine the battle ahead with the fast approaching renewables build out.

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Originally published as Rozelle Interchange is ground zero for NSW’s infrastructure ills