The suburban myths about WestConnex

SCARE tactics about Sydney’s new WestConnex have reached such epic proportions I fear we are now in the realm of the ridiculous, says Duncan Gay.

URBAN myths and scare tactics about Sydney’s new motorway, WestConnex, have reached such epic proportions I fear we are now in the realm of the ridiculous. There are no myths to WestConnex — it is straightforward.

We are widening and upgrading the M4 and M5 and joining them together to create a free-flowing motorway loop. More than two-thirds of the ­motorway will be in road tunnels to take traffic off congested local city streets. It’s just one piece of a massive building program, including new metro and light rail networks, to help unclog Sydney.

An old chestnut peddled by opponents is how WestConnex will reduce the amount of inner-city parkland. The truth is we have cleaned up an old landfill site in Alexandria, heavily contaminated with asbestos, and will now create new green space equivalent in size to six Sydney Cricket Grounds.

To make this happen we need to take a sliver of Sydney Park the size of a bowling green. That’s 55 times more open space than what we will take for construction. The last section of WestConnex — the M4-M5 Link — will see the old disused rail yards in Rozelle transformed into parklands exceeding the size of 10 SCGs.

Viewed from Wattle St, the area bound by Walker Ave, Parramatta Rd, Wattle St and Allum St Haberfield, where houses have been demolished and WestConnex construction is under way. Picture: John Appleyard

The Lord Mayor of Sydney has ­already spent hundreds of thousands of ratepayer funds to mount a scare campaign against WestConnex. Her anti-roads fervour completely ignores the reality of tradies needing to access job sites, trucks and vans delivering supplies to shops or parents transporting children to weekend sports.

A new myth being pushed by Labor’s spokesman for roads is how it would be better for the majority of construction to happen at night. This would see surface drilling and evacuation occurring seven nights a week “from dusk till dawn”.

Millions of tonnes of spoil from WestConnex tunnels would need to be transported by trucks at night. You also dramatically increase safety risks for workers; not to mention severely disrupting their ability to spend quality time with their families. Removing day shifts will also add an extra three years and $3 billion to the M4 upgrade alone.

With congestion increasingly ­sapping the lifeblood out of our standard of living and with another million people expected to live in our city in the next decade, we have no choice but to build.

Duncan Gay is the NSW Minister for Roads