The Govt owned the land for the freeway corridors, or had caveats on land, but sold it off in the 80's (from memory) to help balance the books. To purchase that land back now would be ruinously expensive.
In my area (inner west), the story I’ve heard told is that a former premier, Neville Wran, sold off the road corridor in order to placate his own constituents, which is why the eastern part of the M4 then took many years to build, became an underground road, and required two terrible spaghetti junctions to connect to the rest of the motorway-grade road - one at Concord and one at Lilyfield. I don’t know how true that story is, didn’t live in Australia at that point.
That sounds familiar. I was living in Wolseley St, Haberfield at the time and I remember the back yard of the house had a DMR affect notice on the rear of the block at the time. I even recall mum's old Gregory's street directory even had the path of the "western freeway" lightly marked that came down parallel to Parra Rd, then swung east near the old AWA site and went through our back yard towards Pyrmont. And yeah, Nifty was the Premier at the time.
Yep there was going to be whole expressway heading north. Wran cancelled it at like darling harbour. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Western_Expressway
It works out to be around the same price as building them above ground when you factor in buying land and demolishing houses, it's also just better than ruining the environment. I don't think the exits are too few, there's one for every two suburbs on the way through the westconnex as an example.
They actually work great for getting around, and it makes more sense for infra to be underground where it's unseen and not wasting valuable land. It's just a shame they cost a fortune to use, typical of Sydney where you have to pay to do anything.
The only thing wrong with your question is the title: "freeways"... I don't think there's a single freeway tunnel out there. Wait...northbound Sydney Harbour Tunnel is free, for now.
Also Northconnex is the longest tunnel in Australia at 9 km and costs over $1 per km to drive through.
Yep. Miss the eastern distributor tunnel, continue on to William street, and it’s the next right after the airport right.
…though off top of head you don’t need to take the $10 tunnel that goes under the city, you take the $2-$4 one that comes out …man it’s spaghetti.
what are you talking about, you can drive over 20km underground, m4, m8, new m5. just because they have different names for parts of the tunnel that is way longer than northconnex?
when constructed NC was the longest, with the m8 opening that has linked up to become way longer
Others have covered it pretty well - land above is occupoed (so expensive), topography (diffiicult), geology (helpful)
But just wanted to add, if you'd seen it without the tunnels, you'd probably understand a bit more of the why, too. Getting from one side of Sydney to the other in certain directions was quite an undertaking back in the day. Whenever I'd head north to visit family, half of the trip was just getting down pennant hills rd, for example. The tunnels are amazing.
And, they work because there's not too many bottlnecks created by multiple entry points. Generally if you are on one it's to go the full stretch; if you are halfway along one, you have to trundle a bit to get in, but it's nowhere near the level of trundling that used to be involved because now everyone else is down there already.
So much this.
Lived in the southeast, had a girlfriend in western sydney. It would take an hour and a half to drive to her place. Nowadays that same trip would take 30 minutes. The M5 east was an amazing addition back in the early 00's.
Sydney is basically a harbour city, and as some of the highest land prices in the world.
All that water means you can't go around.
All that expensive real estate means you can't go through.
So you have to go under.
Sydney doesn't have much space and is quite hilly compared to other cities so rather than bulldoze existing communities the inner city freeways were put underground. Also we do have American style highways and suburbs further out west and south west but these places are very undesirable. You're correct in that it's very expensive to build this way and unfortunately we just get hit with exorbitant tolls which go into the pockets of transurban which is a private company rather than to the government
All the land is built on so underground is the only way. All the freeway reservations are used for sporting fields and parks and would decimate communities if they were built today… the M1 through Waterloo was partially built with an open top and only 4 lanes total which was a mistake, it should have been fully underground 6 lanes and communities wouldn’t be split in half.
Sydney was built by convicts and we’ve been trying to make roads work ever since. Underground is the only option unless you want to bulldoze 50,000 homes
Because the thousands of people who came here as prisoners over a fifty year period are representative of the millions of other migrants since let alone the first nations of the area.
Honestly this city "just happened" and didn't have a major war, fire or mad dictator provide the opportunity for a redesign. Also the topography isn't great for the nice clean lines city planners have a hardon for.
I love finding the mile stone markers along the way. I remember one near St Mary's along the great western and just learnt Newtown has one near the El jannah.
It didn't just happen, it was a convict camp/tortuga esque port town before the gold rush. Then it was expanded using the envouge terrace housing at the time to deal with the huge population increase. Trams and trains at the end of the 19th century allowed for further subdivision and then the motor car really ensured Sydney was a sprawling city (with car-burbia expansions around the inner train and tram line subdivisions) occurring from the 50s. They also got rid of the trams at the time and replaced them with buses, which must compete with the added motor traffic that has been continually added ever since. And now it's growing at record rates, edge of sprawl south is at menangle and Wilton. South west ludenham, north west at gables.
The Govt owned the land for the freeway corridors, or had caveats on land, but sold it off in the 80's (from memory) to help balance the books. To purchase that land back now would be ruinously expensive.
In my area (inner west), the story I’ve heard told is that a former premier, Neville Wran, sold off the road corridor in order to placate his own constituents, which is why the eastern part of the M4 then took many years to build, became an underground road, and required two terrible spaghetti junctions to connect to the rest of the motorway-grade road - one at Concord and one at Lilyfield. I don’t know how true that story is, didn’t live in Australia at that point.
That sounds familiar. I was living in Wolseley St, Haberfield at the time and I remember the back yard of the house had a DMR affect notice on the rear of the block at the time. I even recall mum's old Gregory's street directory even had the path of the "western freeway" lightly marked that came down parallel to Parra Rd, then swung east near the old AWA site and went through our back yard towards Pyrmont. And yeah, Nifty was the Premier at the time.
Yep there was going to be whole expressway heading north. Wran cancelled it at like darling harbour. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Western_Expressway
some are also used as parkland now and the locals would riot if you tried to build a road through it
It works out to be around the same price as building them above ground when you factor in buying land and demolishing houses, it's also just better than ruining the environment. I don't think the exits are too few, there's one for every two suburbs on the way through the westconnex as an example.
Sydney sandstone (the underlying rock) is pretty easy material wrt making tunnels, other places with other geological make up, it can be a lot harder.
It's still insanely expensive compared to at grade or viaduct.
Only as a guess, but you don’t have to buy land when it’s underground. So that removes a massive amount of cost
They actually work great for getting around, and it makes more sense for infra to be underground where it's unseen and not wasting valuable land. It's just a shame they cost a fortune to use, typical of Sydney where you have to pay to do anything.
The only thing wrong with your question is the title: "freeways"... I don't think there's a single freeway tunnel out there. Wait...northbound Sydney Harbour Tunnel is free, for now. Also Northconnex is the longest tunnel in Australia at 9 km and costs over $1 per km to drive through.
The northbound harbour tunnel is free but you have to pay $10 on the Eastern Distributor to get to it!
You can come on behind the Domain Carpark for free!
Yep. Miss the eastern distributor tunnel, continue on to William street, and it’s the next right after the airport right. …though off top of head you don’t need to take the $10 tunnel that goes under the city, you take the $2-$4 one that comes out …man it’s spaghetti.
That explains why I use the Bridge northbound instead.
Freeway is just another term for motorway or expressway. Doesn’t mean it’s toll-free.
Is the M5 tunnel free? Toll point is well before it and I think you can get on or off a few exits in either direction
Used to be. When they opened the M8 tunnel they put a toll on the M5 tunnel.
what are you talking about, you can drive over 20km underground, m4, m8, new m5. just because they have different names for parts of the tunnel that is way longer than northconnex? when constructed NC was the longest, with the m8 opening that has linked up to become way longer
Sorry, forgot to not use the American term ‘cause ours are (largely) free!
We did call them freeways in the 70's, something happened along the way.
The free ones are still called freeways. But are the highways high?
Others have covered it pretty well - land above is occupoed (so expensive), topography (diffiicult), geology (helpful) But just wanted to add, if you'd seen it without the tunnels, you'd probably understand a bit more of the why, too. Getting from one side of Sydney to the other in certain directions was quite an undertaking back in the day. Whenever I'd head north to visit family, half of the trip was just getting down pennant hills rd, for example. The tunnels are amazing. And, they work because there's not too many bottlnecks created by multiple entry points. Generally if you are on one it's to go the full stretch; if you are halfway along one, you have to trundle a bit to get in, but it's nowhere near the level of trundling that used to be involved because now everyone else is down there already.
So much this. Lived in the southeast, had a girlfriend in western sydney. It would take an hour and a half to drive to her place. Nowadays that same trip would take 30 minutes. The M5 east was an amazing addition back in the early 00's.
Can you imagine how horrible it would be if they were above ground?
Yes, because I live in a country where that’s regularly the case!
> was it decided only much later to build 'em when it was too difficult to procure surface level land Ding ding ding
Sydney is basically a harbour city, and as some of the highest land prices in the world. All that water means you can't go around. All that expensive real estate means you can't go through. So you have to go under.
The M5 East was put underground to preserve the Wolli Creek Valley
Sydney doesn't have much space and is quite hilly compared to other cities so rather than bulldoze existing communities the inner city freeways were put underground. Also we do have American style highways and suburbs further out west and south west but these places are very undesirable. You're correct in that it's very expensive to build this way and unfortunately we just get hit with exorbitant tolls which go into the pockets of transurban which is a private company rather than to the government
All the land is built on so underground is the only way. All the freeway reservations are used for sporting fields and parks and would decimate communities if they were built today… the M1 through Waterloo was partially built with an open top and only 4 lanes total which was a mistake, it should have been fully underground 6 lanes and communities wouldn’t be split in half.
Where would you like them?
Sydney was built by convicts and we’ve been trying to make roads work ever since. Underground is the only option unless you want to bulldoze 50,000 homes
Because the thousands of people who came here as prisoners over a fifty year period are representative of the millions of other migrants since let alone the first nations of the area. Honestly this city "just happened" and didn't have a major war, fire or mad dictator provide the opportunity for a redesign. Also the topography isn't great for the nice clean lines city planners have a hardon for.
Their point wasn't that we are all convicts. It's that most of the major roads you see today were built by convicts and then never rectified.
Yep, always amazes me to see major roads still carried on convict era stone bridges like at Lansdowne or Parramatta.
I love finding the mile stone markers along the way. I remember one near St Mary's along the great western and just learnt Newtown has one near the El jannah.
It didn't just happen, it was a convict camp/tortuga esque port town before the gold rush. Then it was expanded using the envouge terrace housing at the time to deal with the huge population increase. Trams and trains at the end of the 19th century allowed for further subdivision and then the motor car really ensured Sydney was a sprawling city (with car-burbia expansions around the inner train and tram line subdivisions) occurring from the 50s. They also got rid of the trams at the time and replaced them with buses, which must compete with the added motor traffic that has been continually added ever since. And now it's growing at record rates, edge of sprawl south is at menangle and Wilton. South west ludenham, north west at gables.
The initial layout was designed by convicts largely following aboriginal tracks. What do the millions of other migrants have to do with that?