The single biggest obstacle to transforming Circular Quay

Sydneysider Paul Berkemeier was nearly 11 in 1963 when he sketched the Circular Quay, including the brand-new AMP building, then Sydney’s highest skyscraper, and the five-year-old Cahill Expressway as a black line above the seven-year-old railway station.

It was the beginning of Berkemeier’s very Sydney love affair with the area. For the prominent architect, it was always tinged with recurring despair. Why couldn’t one of the world’s most famous harbours, a place of first contact with Indigenous Australians, get rid of the scar of the expressway? Why couldn’t the space be returned to the people?

Paul Berkemeier loves Circular Quay, but says it is a travesty that it is so rundown.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

The quay hasn’t had a major overhaul since the bicentenary celebrations in 1988, he said. The wharves’ exterior has since been updated, but the old frames have stayed the same. Meeting modern accessibility standards was also difficult because wharves were designed to move up and down.

“There’s been very little maintenance work. And if you look on the wharves, you’ll find where there were glass panels on the side areas, the glass broke ... and it’s been replaced with dodgy aluminium and things are dirty. [The] pavement hasn’t been looked after,” he said.

The wharves at Circular Quay are looking tired despite an exterior upgrade. Credit: Nikki Short

“The undercrofts of the areas under the Cahill Expressway at the east and west ends, they’re singularly unloved.”

He’s in good company thinking that: turning Circular Quay into an outdoor urban living room is a dream shared by politicians including former prime minister Paul Keating, successive premiers of NSW and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, as well as prominent architects – but each time the matter has been raised, something has gone wrong.

In 2015, it briefly looked as though then-premier Mike Baird might have made some progress: describing the area as “run down and not befitting of the greatest city in the world”, the Liberal leader announced $200 million for a radical redevelopment of the wharves and promenade. The plans were promising, but nothing came of it.

Similar promises were made by Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet in 2022, on an even grander scale: a New York-style high line would transform the Cahill Expressway and create a new public green. But then he lost the election.

Since winning government in March 2023, Labor has committed to a modest redevelopment of the precinct. Progress on the project is so slow that some involved fear the government has scrapped it altogether.

A consortium that won a design and financial competition – Capella Capital, Lendlease Construction and BESIXWatpac and architects Aspect Studios and Tzannes with Weston Williamson and Partners – handed over its initial design concepts in late 2024. Several sources involved with the project at different stages said the government was yet to respond.

Budget papers show the most modest of refreshments is now planned: an upgrade of the promenade and ferry wharves “to make them compliant with modern accessibility standards”.

The NSW budget papers show $170 million has been spent on the project – which has been in the planning stage since 2015 – and $70 million was promised in the 2024-25 state budget.

So when will Sydneysiders get to experience the refreshed quay?

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the project to create a modern and accessible transport interchange with new ferry wharves and an upgraded train station is not dead. “We’re in the planning stages,” she said. “Our government is committed to the renewal of Circular Quay, but we’re going to do it in a way that is realistic.

“The former government had grandiose plans, including a highline at Circular Quay. We will be focused on making sure that the public transport interchange at Circular Quay … is a functional and modern space, and also a gateway from our harbour to our city that we can be proud of. We need to get this right.”

That ‘irreparable’ expressway

Getting Circular Quay right has been challenging since the 1940s when cars began to flood the city. Now – with light rail, ferries, trains, buses, taxis and cruise ships – the large transport interchange is awash with people and land managed by different government agencies.

The biggest single obstacle to its transformation is the Cahill Expressway. Connecting traffic from the east of the city to the Harbour Bridge, the expressway was opened in 1958 to take traffic out of inner-city streets.

The Cahill Expressway goes over the centre of the quay.Credit: Nikki Short

For a long time before that, it faced criticism. Labor’s secretary for public works, JJ Cahill, after whom the strip is named, had sought extensive counsel on its placement because he did not want to do something “irreparable”.

In 1948, Truth newspaper called the plans for the elevated roadway and railway a “proposed monstrosity”, saying “blotting out Sydney Harbour and the quay was an outrage to public conscience”. Cahill replied that the elevated roadway and railway had been approved by the previous government.

The Cahill Expressway sits on top of the City Circle line.Credit: Nikki Short

He was aware that it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, and sought practical alternatives – but nobody seemed to have a better idea.

(To Cahill’s credit, he was also responsible for commissioning the Opera House, telling critics it would become an outstanding example of modern architecture.)

Moore said removing the road and putting the train station underground was part of the City’s long-term Sustainable Sydney 2030-2050 vision.

“The first step is the renewal of the ferry wharves, the starting point for this project and we are keen to see any proposed timeline for these works,” Moore said. “Removing the Cahill Expressway would, of course, be a challenging project, but city-building takes time. We have suggested a staged process.”

Precinct thrives despite delays

While Circular Quay has languished, the blocks around it are thriving. Multiple new buildings have popped up, including the award-winning Quay Quarter Tower and Lanes at one end and the Salesforce Tower and 180 George Street Plaza at the other. They are connected by residential, retail and hospitality opportunities, soon to include Sydney’s first Waldorf Hotel.

“Creating a seamless connection to our stunning harbour would make this renewed precinct even better,” Moore said.

“It is more important than ever that we create places in our CBD that are environmentally, visually and socially attractive – places that will sustain city life for decades to come and extend that life beyond the hours of nine to five.”

Moore’s proposal was based on a plan and design by Sydney architect Philip Vivian, managing director of Bates Smart. The plan proposes removing the Cahill Expressway after the Western Harbour Tunnel is completed and leaving the train station (servicing the City Circle line) in place until the line can be moved, or go underground.

Contrary to what many think, Vivian said, the expressway is not connected to the railway station and line below.

“The expressway isn’t necessary because most traffic, except during delays, now uses the Eastern Distributor, which wasn’t an option when the Cahill was constructed,” he said.

Bates Smart’s vision for Circular Quay: the removal of the Cahill Expressway and the rerouting of the City Circle train line underground to create a wide open space reconnecting Customs House to the water.Credit: Bates Smart

He proposed moving the train line a block inland and underground in the final phase.

“Our thought was: let’s show a vision of what could be a magnificent urban room, the site of the First Fleet landing, a major entry to Sydney, the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, our city glistening on the harbour as a beautiful open welcome to our global city,” Vivian said.

He envisaged the quay as a venue for summer movies, Opera on the Harbour, and a place for city celebrations.

“It’s really the return of the city to the people and away from cars. You should not cut the city off by this multilayered car and train barricade. You should open it up so that we actually connect our city with the harbour. It’s like a walled-off city, and really it should be an open city.”

Sydney is behind other international cities that have removed freeways, rerouting or putting new ones underground, in city-shaping projects, Vivian said. He cited Boston’s Big Dig, which removed a deteriorating six-lane elevated Central Artery (I-93), created an underground highway, freed up 120 hectares of land, planted nearly 1000 trees and connected downtown Boston to the waterfront.

In Seoul, South Korea, the Cheonggyecheon stream restoration project turned a highway into a park and restored the stream, and similar pedestrianisation projects have taken place in New York’s Times Square and London’s Trafalgar Square.

Given the government has ruled out removing the expressway, Berkemeier – who became president of the Australian Institute of Architects – said there were still small strategic updates that could improve the area.

Improved lighting and other initiatives could make the space under the dark undercroft at the eastern end of the quay less horrible, he said.

The underside of the railway provided shelter from the elements, but it had miserable lighting and traffic bollards had been plonked down.

Paul Berkemeier’s drawing of Circular Quay. Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

The scene Berkemeier painted more than 50 years ago no longer resembles reality: along with the construction of the Opera House and countless new buildings in the city skyline, virtually every object he portrayed has, in some way, been repaired or updated.

Only a few elements remain the same, including the sparkling blue water, the expressway and the station.

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