The Sydney Motorway projects in the Greater Sydney area

This case study demonstrates design principle one from the Beyond the Pavement urban design guide: Contributing to urban structure, urban quality and the economy.

The Sydney Motorway projects in the Greater Sydney area

The Sydney Motorway network including Westconnex has enabled the revitalisation of a number of areas of derelict land otherwise highly expensive to have been restored. The Rozelle Railyards (1) and the St Peters tip (2) are two examples where many hectares of inaccessible land are being turned into public open ‘green’ space. The development of Parramatta road over the coming decades will be made easier through the removal of some surface freight traffic and the fact that there is an alternative route.

The project has been driven by an Urban design vision: “The Westconnex motorway shall be a sustainable, high quality and transformational project for Sydney’s Global City, the people of Sydney and NSW. Exhibiting design excellence as a whole and in all the constituent parts, it should be sensitively integrated into the natural and built environment, help build communities and contribute to the future liveability of the city”.

This project in the making is a significant metropolitan shaping investment and works toward the realisation of this urban design vision. It provides a subterranean network that completes and extends the motorway system, and potentially promotes new development, better connects neighbourhoods, cleans up derelict sites and creates significant parkland, cycle ways (23km) and footpaths. Special attention has been paid to the architecture of critical infrastructural elements such as portals, ramps and bridges, and to the landscape design and quality that stitches the project into its different settings, and contributes to green infrastructure in the city.

Rozelle Railyards has been an unused and derelict space for decades. As part of the WestConnnex project it has been cleaned up, decontaminated and being turned into a large piece of green public open space and playing fields. The motorway tunnels are located beneath the parkland and the portals and ventilation buildings are along the City West Link frontage.

The portals and ventilation buildings of Westconnex stage 1b direct freight and major traffic loads beneath the city creating the opportunity for surface streets to be revitalised.