One of Sydney’s busiest and most complicated roads will undergo a major route shakeup, permanently changing how people move through the near-complete transport corridor connecting the city’s northern suburbs to the CBD.
More than 250,000 motorists who use the Warringah Freeway each day will be affected by permanent route changes when they begin from 6am on Saturday. Southbound motorists driving to the city will need to choose either the Harbour Bridge or Harbour Tunnel lanes about 1 kilometre earlier in their journey; they will have to keep left for the bridge and right for the tunnel.
The four-kilometre Warringah Freeway is one of Sydney’s busiest transport corridors and has been undergoing a $2 billion upgrade since 2022. It will allow motorists to bypass the CBD when the Western Harbour Tunnel opens in late 2028.
The 6.5-kilometre project will link the WestConnex motorway under the inner west to the Warringah Freeway in the north.
The complex facelift involves balancing the amount of work that can be carried out with traffic changes such as reduced lanes and temporary ramp closures causing delays and congestion for motorists forced to divert.
About 17 of 300 traffic configurations remain before the project is complete at the end of this year.
The permanent slip lane closure connecting the southbound Harbour Tunnel lanes to the Harbour Bridge is among the changes to be rolled out this Saturday, which means motorists can no longer cross from the inner freeway lanes to the outer lanes to avoid entering the Harbour Tunnel.
The Ernest Street on-ramp’s access to the Harbour Bridge will be removed to become a dedicated entry point for the Harbour Tunnel. Access to the bridge will continue on Brook Street, Miller Street, Falcon Street, and Mount Street.
Transport for NSW coordinator-general Howard Collins advised motorists to “keep calm”, as it would “take a while to learn those new routes”.
The Falcon Street and Military Road interchange will redirect traffic to the western on-ramp for access to the bridge or tunnel, while the eastern on-ramp will become a dedicated bus lane, with no access to the Cahill Expressway or Alfred Street off-ramp.
NSW Minister for Roads Jenny Aitchison said the upgrades were designed to “stop weaving that has happened for decades, ensuring that once people get in, they continue in that lane throughout their journey”.
Another feature is a dedicated 2.2-kilometre bus lane running south of the Miller Street overpass to the bridge and CBD, which Aitchison said would deliver a more efficient journey for 150,000 daily bus passengers.
The upgrade has attracted criticism from North Sydney Council Mayor Zoe Baker, who called the upgrade a “misconceived project”.
“It’s just going to change where the congestion is, rather than address the underlying issue. It will still ultimately hit the pinch point on the Harbour Bridge and the Harbour Tunnel, and the fear is that it will encourage congestion on local roads and rat runs as previous access is cut off,” she said.
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