By Matt O'Sullivan
Motorists will be charged $1.77 one way on the 4-kilometre underground stretch of the first stage of the F6 Extension in Sydney's south but will end up paying at least $4.56 because they will have no choice but to connect to the WestConnex toll road at Arncliffe.
The Berejiklian government also revealed on Tuesday that the first stage comprising tunnels of two lanes in each direction between Arncliffe and President Avenue at Kogarah will cost up to $2.6 billion, and be opened to motorists by 2024.
Trucks will be charged three times the rate of cars for driving on the first stage, the cost of which the government said was now fully funded and could one day be extended to three lanes each way. It has yet to commit funding for stages two or three, which will eventually extend the toll road to Loftus near the Royal National Park.
The nearest exit for a motorist driving north on the new toll road will be the interchange for WestConnex at St Peters in the inner west. That means that on top of the $1.77 – based on 2017 dollars – for driving on the first stage of the F6 Extension, motorists will have to pay a flag-fall for WestConnex of $2.79 and 47¢ per kilometre.
NSW Roads Minister Melinda Pavey said the government wanted to be “upfront” about the tolls because they allowed it to invest at the same time in public transport improvements.
An artist's impression of the entrance to the first stage of the F6 Extension at President Avenue at Kogarah.
“Because of those decisions, we actually have a new age of infrastructure not only in Sydney but across NSW,” she said.
Mrs Pavey rejected suggestions the new project's purpose was to funnel vehicles onto WestConnex, and emphasised that it would allow motorists to avoid 23 sets of traffic lights, and remove 10,000 vehicles a day from General Holmes Drive.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian, left, Roads Minister Melinda Pavey and Transport Minister Andrew Constance announce funding for the F6 Extension on Tuesday.Credit: Simon Bullard
Like those for WestConnex, tolls for the F6 will rise at 4 per cent a year or the rate of inflation, whichever is greater. After 20 years, they will escalate at the inflation rate.
Under the plans, about 12 properties will be acquired for the first stage by the state, and two exhaust stacks built for the tunnels: one at the toll road's northern end near Sydney Airport, and the other towards the south in an industrial area at West Botany Street.
Last year it shelved controversial plans for the final stage between Loftus and Waterfall, which would have required 60 hectares of the Royal National Park or bulldozing 460 homes.
Labor leader Luke Foley attacked the government for announcing a “new toll road that takes you a mere 4km and brings you out at another toll road”.
“This is simply about making the WestConnex business model stack up to put more cars onto the WestConnex toll road,” he said. “You can bet your bottom dollar that it will be a lot more than $1.77 by the time it opens.”
Mr Foley declined to reveal Labor's plan for the F6 Extension, saying only that it would be announcing its policy “well before” the state election next March. “I'm not going to be hurried into an announcement on this roads project,” he said.
But Transport Minister Andrew Constance accused Labor of running “scare campaigns that are mischievous and obviously designed to upset people without fact”, and said the Princes Highway would provide a free alternative for motorists unwilling to pay a toll for the F6 Extension.