Olympic visitors to Sydney to benefit from toll tunnel

Olympic visitors to Sydney to benefit from toll road/tunnel

An Australian state government that had promised to abolish tolls, but kept them, has now announced the second largest toll road project in that nation's history. A private concessionaire will start work next year on a $450m system of tunnels, underpasses and road widenings to end traffic jams between Sydney's airport and the downtown. The 9km journey presently takes 30 to 50 minutes on overloaded surface streets with many signals.

By June 2000 the government of New South Wales hopes to have expressways and other highway improvements worth $1.6b complete to reduce this 3.5 million city's terrible traffic jams. Unlike North American, European or Japanese cities with high levels of automobile ownership Sydney poured public money into transit and neglected highways until about ten years ago, but it now has two toll expressways in operation (M4, M5), a third under construction (M2) and two tolled harbor crossings (the bridge and a tunnel). The current Labor Government came to power in March 1995 promising to end tolls. Instead it has offered refunds of tolls to regular patrons of one tollway who fill in forms and appply, but is also proceedeing with new toll projects. The transport minister said new investor-built tollways were the only way the city would be ready for the Olympic Games, and said of the airport tollway: "We couldn't find the A$600m (US$450m). We would have had to take the money from somewhere else and that's not fair." (Herald 8/14/96)

The most spectacular feature of the Sydney airport road will be a 6-lane 1.5km-long bored tunnel under a densely developed area immediately southeast of the central business district, the centerpiece of a project long known as the Eastern Distributor for its many ramps. At the southern portals of the tunnel traffic will have three options, one heading to the airport where South Dowling Street, presently a surface road with traffic signals will be widened and given a series underpasses to upgrade it to expressway standard. In the vicinity of the airport the new highway will tunnel under the main runways and connect with an extended toll road to the western suburbs (M5). At its northern end alongside the business district the Eastern Distributor tunnel will distribute traffic to main surface streets and be connected to the 4-lane Cahill Expressway, which has a short section burrowed under the Royal Botanic Gardens and an elevated structure by historic Sydney Cove which leads to the Sydney Harbor bridge, Under the Botanic Gardens are ramps to the privately built Harbor tunnel.

Three consortia competed for the concession to build the new Eastern Distributor and airport expressway and the government awarded it to Airport Motorway, a group led by the Leighton Contractors. Following the success of public floats of the two major toll projects under construction, the Sydney Hills Motorway (M2) and the Melbourne Transurban City Link, Leightons plans to raise between $100m and $135m in a public share offering. It will also take advantage of tax advantaged "infrastructure bonds" intended by the federal government to encourage privatization of major transport, power and communications projects that were previously seen as public sector domain. There is no government investment in these toll projects. (Contact Airport Motorway Co 61 2 9925 6666)