South Western Motorway

South Western Motorway
Basic data
Operator:	Roads and Maritime Services
Start of the street:	/ General Holmes Drive Kyeemagh ( Sydney ) ( NSW ) ( 33 ° 57 ′  S , 151 ° 10 ′  E )
End of street:	South Western Freeway M7 WestLink Casula ( Sydney ) ( NSW ) ( 33 ° 57 ′  S , 150 ° 53 ′  E )
Overall length:	26 km
States :	New South Wales
East Freeway east of the Beaconsfield Street flyover in Revesby

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

The South Western Motorway is a privately financed urban motorway in southwest Sydney in the east of the Australian state of New South Wales . It connects General Holmes Drive in Kyeemagh (Sydney) with the South Western Freeway , the Hume Highway and the WestLink in Casula (Sydney). The road opened to traffic in August 1992 and, together with the publicly funded South Western Freeway, forms Metroad 5.

history

South Western Motorway

The South Western Motorway replaced the old Hume Highway from Liverpool to Sydney. In the 1980s the Hume Highway (N31) ended in Crossroads , just outside Liverpool. The section from Campbelltown to Crossroads was formerly called the South Western Freeway and was designated as Freeway Corridor F5.

Since then, Sydney city center can be reached via either Liverpool Road (S31) or Newbridge Road (S54) via Bankstown without paying tolls. Both alternative routes have many traffic lights and are often very congested.

A first section of the route was built in the mid-1980s as a link between Heathcote Road in Moorebank and the Hume Highway in Casula, including a bridge over the Georges River at Casula. Although this street was built with separate lanes, almost with freeway standard, it had a traffic light-controlled intersection with Moorebank Avenue .

After years of proposals and political promises, a privately financed and operated urban freeway - the South Western Motorway - was built as an operator model. The new road was built on public land on the F5 freeway corridor between Heathcote Road in Moorebank and King Georges Road in Beverly Hills . It was completed in August 1992, months ahead of the target. However, the connection between Crossroads and Casula was still missing and a third “motorway” was only available as a two-lane road between the junction with Fairford Road and the junction with King Georges Road.

The South Western Motorway is operated by Interlink Roads and has a toll booth in Hammondville . In 2023 the road will pass to the government of New South Wales.

East Freeway

Ventilation outlet of the East Freeway in Turrella

In 1994 the gap between Crossroads and Casula was finally closed. Even so, the freeway still ended abruptly at King Georges Road, forcing traffic to Sydney city center onto congested streets. As a result, a publicly funded link - the East Freeway - was built between the existing motorway on King Georges Road and General Holmes Drive (Met-1) in Mascot, next to the airport . Two tunnels were included, one 4 km long from Kingsgrove to Arncliffe and one under the Cooks River . Construction began in August 1998 and the East Freeway opened in December 2001.

There were discussions about the impact of the freeway on the environment, especially on parts of Wolli Creek and about the ventilation outlets of the tunnels, which were not equipped with filters for reasons of cost. Since its opening, the East Freeway has been criticized for lack of capacity, because the tunnel sections only have two lanes in each direction and no space has been earmarked for later widening. Most of the congestion problems are at the western end of the long main tunnel.

An additional lane for slow traffic exists over a short distance from the western tunnel entrance. If this lane had been extended a few hundred meters further into the tunnel, the capacity of the entire tunnel would be far greater. There are also frequent traffic accidents at the steep tunnel entrances, in which trucks are often involved. Air pollution in the tunnel is also a difficult problem. The health authority informed the road traffic authority that the level of air pollution in the tunnel at peak times clearly exceeds acceptable levels. Drivers must therefore keep the windows closed when driving through and set the ventilation to recirculation.

With the construction of the East Freeway, the eastern, two-lane section of the South Western Motorway was expanded to 4 lanes, so that the entire Met-5 is now freeway standard.

The traffic light intersection with Moorebank Avenue remained, however, and was a constant obstacle to the flow of traffic. In 2003, a free-height connection to this street was finally opened. This means that not only the entire Metroad 5, but also the entire motorway from Canberra to Sydney is continuously expanded to the freeway standard.

WestLink (M7)

With the completion of the WestLink in December 2005 and the designation of the route from the Cumberland Highway to the WestLink as Metroad 7, a connection was built in Prestons that enables access from the south to the western part of Sydney or the bypassing of the entire inner city of Sydney.

criticism

The South Western Motorway is often closed due to accidents and computer crashes in the East Tunnel , which has caused significant resentment among motorists in Sydney. Between 2002 and 2008 there were six closures due to technical or IT difficulties in the tunnel.

The New South Wales government has been penalized to the operators of the South Western Motorway because the route is more traffic than originally intended. By 2011, these fines had reached AU- $ 13 million. The additional burden in question was caused by the state rebate system for users of the South Western Motorway.

Crossings and junctions

South Western Motorway
Connections to the northeast	Distance to Sydney (km)	Distance to Melbourne (km)	Connections to the southwest
At the end of the South Western Motorway, continue as General Holmes Drive to Sydney	16	864	Start of the South Western Motorway from General Holmes Drive
Mascot, Arncliffe Marsh Street	17.5	862.5	Arncliffe, Mascot Marsh Street
Tempe, Kogarah Princes Highway	18th	862	no exit
Campsie, Bexley Bexley Road	20th	860	no exit
no exit	21st	859	Kingsgrove, Belmore Kingsgrove Road
END TOLL ROUTE	23	857	Blakehurst, Ryde King Georges Road
Ryde , Blakehurst King Georges Road			START OF THE TOLL ROUTE
Punchbowl, Riverwood Belmore Road	25th	855	no exit
Newcastle , Hornsby , Bankstown, Menai, Wollongong , South Coast Fairford Road	27	853	Mid North Coast, Newcastle , Hornsby , Bankstown, Menai, Wollongong , South Coast Fairford Road
Bankstown, Revesby The River Road	29	851	Revesby, Bankstown The River Road
Parramatta , Hurstville Henry Lawson Drive	32	848	Hurstville, Parramatta Henry Lawson Drive
TOLL BOARD	34	846	TOLL BOARD
START OF THE TOLL ROUTE	36	844	Heathcote, Liverpool Heathcote Road
Liverpool, Heathcote Heathcote Road			END TOLL ROUTE
Moorebank, Glenfield Moorebank Avenue	37	843	Glenfield, Moorebank Moorebank Avenue
no exit	38	842	Casula, Liverpool, Hornsby , Blacktown Old Hume Highway
Start of the South Western Motorway further from the South Western Freeway	42	838	Casula, Prestons Beech Road
			Lithgow , Newcastle , Brisbane WestLink
			At the end of the South Western Motorway, continue as the South Western Freeway to Campbelltown / Canberra / Melbourne

Web links

• M5 South Western Motorway
• RTA M5 East
  • M5 East
• RTA M5 East Air Quality
• RTA webcam in Liverpool
• Webcam in Beverly Hills

source

• Steve Parish: Australian Touring Atlas . Steve Parish Publishing. Archerfield QLD 2007, ISBN 978-1-74193-232-4 , pp. 22 + 25.

Individual evidence

1. ^ M5 East Tunnels Air Quality Monitoring Project Report . South Eastern Sydney Public Health Unit & NSW Department of Health. July 2003. p. 50
2. ^ ^{A b} Linton Besser, Robinson, Georgina: Millions lost in the M5 black hole , The Sydney Morning Herald. September 23, 2008.