Sydney Orbital Motorway
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Sydney Orbital Motorway is a planned network of motorways (tollways) encircling Sydney and is the longest ring road in Australia.
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[edit] History
Sydney is a city that grew organically compared to Melbourne, which had a rigidly imposed grid layout and Adelaide, which was surveyed and planned. Sydney's growth centres on urban centres such as the CBD, Parramatta, Penrith, Campbelltown and many others which are actually former towns swallowed by Sydney's urban sprawl. Roads that link these centres are frequently congested.
In the 1980's freeways were built at the busiest parts. However, they are still not properly integrated into the road networks. In the 1990's with the introduction of Metroads, important circumferential Metroads are linked together to form the Sydney Orbital Motorway. They are built to take intra-urban traffic off local roads and relieve congestion.
[edit] Network
The Metroads which form the Orbital are:
- Metroad 1, Covering General Holmes Dr, Southern Cross Dr, Eastern Distributor, Cahill Expressway and Sydney Harbour Tunnel
- Metroad 5, From the M7 junction at Casula to the end of the Southern Cross Drive at the Airport
- Westlink M7, Connecting from M2 at Baulkham Hills to intersect at the M4 Western Motorway at Eastern Creek, before heading south to end at the M5 South Western Motorway at Casula
- Metroad 2, Covering Sydney Harbour Bridge, Warringah Freeway, Gore Hill Freeway, Lane Cove Tunnel [2] and the M2 Hills Motorway.
[edit] Highway links
Intercity highways are linked to the Orbital, moving traffic away from the old busy National Routes. They are:
- Pennant Hills Rd -- linking Sydney-Newcastle Freeway to M2 Motorway
- M4 Motorway -- linking Great Western Highway to Westlink M7
- M5 Motorway South -- Casula to Hume Highway
- King Georges Rd -- linking M5 Motorway to Princes Highway, Southern Freeway and Wollongong
[edit] Missing Highway links
- Lane Cove Tunnel -- The completion date for this project is late 2006. At that time, Sydney will have a complete freeway standard ring road.
- Link to the F3 Sydney-Newcastle Freeway -- The final stage of a motorway standard Sydney Bypass, a tunnel under Pennant Hills Rd is in the planning stages. Construction is due to commence in 2007, concluding in 2010. [1]
- Link to the F6 Southern Freeway -- At present, there are no plans to complete this link as freeway standard. The only section which was built is the Captain Cook Bridge and it's approaches. Land is still reserved north of this point through Sandringham, and south through the Royal National Park. This still leaves a considerable length of the corridor built out, which will require great expense to resume, or tunnel beneath.
- Marrickville Tunnel -- Proposal to link the orbital ring road at Port Botany with the M4 Motorway, to remove commercial traffic from inner west surface roads.
- M4 East -- Extension of the M4 Motorway to the Anzac Bridge. This proposal has been reviewed and cancelled following stiff community opposition, which cited encouraging additional commuter traffic into the CBD, whilst removing little commercial traffic from the area.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
| Major road infrastructure in Sydney | |
|---|---|
| Motorways | Cross City Motorway | Eastern Distributor | Lane Cove Tunnel | M2 Hills Motorway | M4 Western Motorway | M5 South Western Motorway | Westlink M7 |
| Freeways | Southen Cross Drive | Southern Freeway | Sydney-Newcastle Freeway | Warringah Freeway | Gore Hill Freeway |
| Metroads | Metroad 1 | Metroad 2 | Metroad 3 | Metroad 4 | Metroad 5 | Metroad 6 | Metroad 7 | Metroad 9 | Metroad 10 |
| Bridges & Tunnels | Sydney Harbour Bridge | Sydney Harbour Tunnel | Anzac Bridge | Gladesville Bridge | Fig Tree Bridge | Tarban Creek Bridge |
| Conceptual Plans | Sydney Orbital Motorway | Sydney Bypasses (past, present and proposed) |
| Categories | Category: Streets in Sydney | Category: Sydney highways |
| Other | M4 East (proposed) | Marrickville Tunnel (proposed) | North Western Expressway (abandoned) |
| Operators | Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales | Connector Motorways | State Wide Roads | Transurban |
| Transport in Sydney | [edit] | |
