M4 Western Motorway
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| M4 Western Motorway | |
| Length | 46 km |
| Direction | East–west |
| Start | Parramatta Rd, North Strathfield |
| Primary destinations | Western Sydney |
| End | Great Western Highway, Lapstone |
| Construction dates | 1970s - 1993 |
| Major junctions | Metroad 3, Metroad 4, Metroad 6, Westlink M7, Metroad 9 |
| Owner | Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), State Wide Roads (SWR) |
| Operator | SWR Operations Pty Limited, RTA |
 |
This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations. |
The M4 Western Motorway (also known as the M4 Motorway or simply M4) is a motorway in central Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It forms part of Sydney Metroad 4.
The Western Motorway is a partially-tolled motorway, with a toll plaza near Silverwater. It is only necessary to pay a toll if travelling on the motorway between James Ruse Drive and Silverwater Road, and it is possible to use the majority of the motorway without paying the toll.
The Motorway is mostly 6 lanes wide, and carries constant heavy traffic during daylight hours, seven days a week. Built as a four lane motorway, it was widened to six lanes during 1998 to 2000, but this did little to ease the congestion. Widening the motorway any further would probably not help, as without the M4 East extension (see below), the congestion would just move further east, where traffic is deposited onto surface streets at Strathfield.
Originally planned in the mid 1950's to start in the CBD, the eastern section was only built as far west as Pyrmont as part of the North West Expressway, or F3, a freeway that would connect the Sydney and Newcastle Central Business Districts. This section is now part of the Western Distributor. From there it was to have joined with the Western Expressway, the F4, and the Southern Expressway, the F6, in Glebe.
On the basis of a pre-election promise made by the New South Wales Premier Neville Wran in 1976, all land reserved for the expressway between Pyrmont and the current eastern termination point at Strathfield was sold off to property developers or declassified as a freeway corridor in 1977 by the State Government. The proposed expressway ran through the seat held by the Premier Neville Wran.
The decision to abandon this and other freeway corridors has ironically been proven less than 30 years later to be detrimental and not beneficial for the residents of these electorates. The major arterial routes in these areas now suffer from severe traffic congestion. To avoid this traffic congestion local residents and commuters resort to "rat running", the use of secondary and residential roads to avoid traffic gridlock. This has had many negative impacts for the local residents including noise pollution, air pollution, and dangerous substandard road surface conditions resulting from the excessive wear and tear upon them. These secondary and residential roads were never designed to carry enormous amounts of commuter and heavy traffic throughout the day.
[edit] M4 East
A major extension to the M4 has been proposed and has well-advanced plans. This extension would extend the M4 beyond its current end in Strathfield by approximately 5 kilometres, so that it would subsequently end in Ashfield and be continuous with the City West Link. Further planned upgrades to the City West Link would mean commuters going west out of the city could get to Parramatta without passing through traffic lights. The NSW Government recently outlined a $7 billion plan to link the M4, Victoria Road, City West Link and Sydney Airport using a network of underground tunnels.
As of April 2005, the NSW state government has shelved plans for the M4 East extension, citing the need for an integrated plan for transport, but possibly to mitigate residents in affected suburbs which would have been affected by increased traffic had the M4 East link been approved. Future plans may include instead a continuous traffic-light-free link from the city's Western Distributor to the current end of the M4.
The lack of this link is currently causing major problems for any commercial traffic wishing to travel between Port Botany and the many factories and warehouses in the western suburbs. The M5 South Western Motorway does connect directly to Port Botany, but it has chronic congestion problems of its own, and doesn't provide easy access to inner western areas of Sydney. There is so much demand for this link, that traffic not only uses the designated Metroad 4 (Parramatta Road), but also several back streets to the north and south, most of which are 2 lane residential streets.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- SWR M4 Motorway website
- The M4 Motorway - a history and exit guide
- M4 East extension - Roads and Traffic Authority
- RTA traffic webcams
- M4 and Parramatta Rd intersection in Strathfield - Wikimapia
 |
This Australian road or road transport-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
