Westconnex and the Rozelle Interchange: A puff piece dissected

Opinion by PETER HEHIR.

Media coverage on the impending opening of the Westconnex Rozelle Interchange has failed to address the shortcomings of the project.

The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) article published on 15 June by Matt Sullivan states that the “massive underground interchange beneath Sydney’s inner west will be opened to motorists within months, completing the final piece of the $17 billion WestConnex motorway and promising to relieve congestion on local roads and the Anzac Bridge”.

SGS Economics, when engaged by the City of Sydney Council, independently costed the WestConnex motorway, including what was originally Stage 4 (the Western Harbour Tunnel aka the WHT), at some $45 billion. This figure was made public in 2017.

Whilst the new 1.1 kilometre tunnel bypass of Victoria Road in Rozelle – linking the Iron Cove and Anzac bridges – will be free for vehicles, what is never mentioned in the mainstream media is that the unfiltered exhaust stack on Victoria Road will release into the adjoining residential area roughly the same amount of toxic material as the unfiltered M5 East stack at Turrella.

Lung cancer threat 

This stack has long been suggested as the primary cause of a 44% lung cancer spike in Earlwood among residents who all live downwind of the plume. South Sydney Area Health Service provided this figured and confirmed that, at the time of the study, the statewide incidence of lung cancer had actually fallen by 9%.

NSW Roads Minister John Graham in describing the complex project as “an engineering marvel’’ also said “the interchange was crucial to delivering travel time savings of up to 40 minutes for motorists using WestConnex”.

However Graham, like all of the proponents of WestConnex, ignores the fact that much of the travel time saved will be spent in the tunnels near the exits, as traffic backs up approaching the inevitable bottleneck at the three White Bay tunnel portals and at the Anzac Bridge.

Any freeway user will be familiar with the choke point that is impossible to avoid when re-entering the local road network.

On approaching the portals, the air in the tunnels will be some 50 times more toxic than the ambient air. This figure comes from tests conducted by the RMS at the portals of the Lane Cove Tunnel. The projected increased volume of traffic will also ensure that the congestion at White Bay will significantly worsen once the interchange becomes operational.

During morning and afternoon peak hours, Victoria Road, the Anzac Bridge and the City West Link are already at over capacity, with the most congested rating of F.

The tunnel users will soon learn to avoid sitting in the stalled traffic’s polluted air and will likely seek relief by reverting to surface routes, such as the already heavily congested City West Link, and rat runs through the local road network.

Graham’s comment – “it’s one of the most complex construction projects ever completed in Sydney and possibly the country,” – made during a tour of the interchange, does seriously understate the size of the project. It is easily the largest and most convoluted ever undertaken in Australia and is currently the biggest tunnelling enterprise in the Southern Hemisphere.

The SMH article cites the amenities to be built bordering the City West Link in the 10-hectare parkland above the underground interchange.

It states the interchange “is expected to be largely completed by the end of the year. Playgrounds, barbecues and pathways are being installed, and an oval and rectangular field on a site that was once the Rozelle rail yards will have grass put down within several months.”

This in spite of genuine concerns for the health of park users and local residents, due to the carcinogenic emissions from the unfiltered exhaust stacks, and the health of those commuters crawling through the stalled traffic in the tunnels, forced to breathe in the toxic air.

In an undertaking given to the recently retired NSW State Member for Balmain, M.P. Jamie Parker, residents were given an assurance that the interchange would definitely not become operational until all of the amenities were completed. Current statements suggest that this guarantee almost certainly will not be complied with.

Sullivan’s article states, “this project comprises 24 kilometres of tunnels beneath Rozelle and Lilyfield”. About seven kilometres of this network will mostly be used for importing and extracting the unfiltered toxic gases generated throughout the tunnel network from Homebush, Haberfield, St Peters and Cammeray when the WHT comes on line.

This is conservatively estimated to be at least 200 metric tonnes annually, extrapolated from figures provided by the RMS for the M5 East stack. The 17 kilometres of trafficable tunnels below Rozelle/Lilyfield equals about 50 lane kilometres, each generating at least one metric tonne per lane kilometre of carcinogenic material annually. But this impact isn’t mentioned.

According to the SMH article, Graham has said that the opening of the interchange by December would “improve traffic flows on roads”, but he has cautioned that “not all the issues will be resolved when the tunnels are completed”. Opponents of the unfiltered stacks are well aware that this is clearly the case. They cite the Earlwood cancer cluster downwind of the exhaust stack at Turrella as a major case in point, along with the inevitable bottlenecks at the tunnel portals.

Graham advises that the $3.9 billion interchange will allow motorists to bypass the CBD and avoid having to use the Anzac Bridge and Western Distributor to travel between the Inner West and the North Shore. However this won’t happen until 2028 at the earliest, certainly not until the WHT becomes operational.

Transport for NSW’s deputy secretary of infrastructure and place, Camilla Drover, said “the 1.1-kilometre tunnel bypass of Victoria Road was projected to halve traffic on the latter and create opportunities to revitalise it.”

Inner city architectural heritage under threat

Residents are concerned that “revitalise it” is just ‘newspeak’ for massive high rise development in line with the announcement by the NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns that planning controls will be removed from local councils and plans for large residential developments under the guise of State Significant Infrastructure (SSI) will be fast tracked, with no scope for legitimate resident objections to be heard.

These mammoth projects will dwarf the existing Victorian terraces and cottages in Rozelle and totally destroy the amenity and heritage of these historic precincts. Resident’s concerns are that Rozelle, Balmain, Lilyfield and the entire inner ring of mid/late Victorian architecture, encircling the CBD from Hunters Hill to Woollahra, will ultimately be obliterated, and replaced with soulless high-rise buildings.  This has already happened to the terraces and cottages in Pyrmont/Ultimo.

Without effective heritage protection even the historic precinct of The Rocks would be under threat. SSI is no respecter of items of environmental heritage, as the wholesale demolition of hundreds of homes by WestConnex (WCX) in Haberfield clearly demonstrated. In response to alarm expressed by an owner of such a dwelling, a WCX staffer has stated: “Oh, we don’t bulldoze them, we demolish them by hand.”

Toll inequity and pollution punishes hip pockets and hearts 

Drover’s suggestion in the Sullivan article that the interchange will help relieve a traffic bottleneck on the Anzac Bridge and the City West Link simply can’t be substantiated. Both are already beyond capacity. Adding more traffic can only worsen an already dysfunctional road system and exacerbate the existing choke points.

The inequity of the tolls, the brunt of which are borne by Western Sydney residents travelling towards the CBD, further add to the financial strain on households currently buckling under the weight of energy, food and cost of living increases, and now further disadvantaged by rampant inflation.

But the most insidious aspect of all of this is the immense outpouring of toxic carcinogenic material. This will radically shorten the lives of Rozelle and Lilyfield residents who live in the path of the plumes from the three White Bay exhaust stacks and the Victoria Road stack. These stacks represent the largest outpouring of unfiltered diesel generated carcinogens anywhere in the world and will  result in massive morbidity and mortality.

Neither the Labor nor Liberal parties at state and federal level are prepared to retro filter the lethal stacks. Residents believe this is a matter of real urgency, essential to ensure the health of local residents. But the Liberal Party and Labor Party remain unmoved. Huge campaign donations by both the fossil fuel and developer lobbies are simply too attractive to jeopardise.

These donations keep both major parties’ campaigns flush with cash and guarantee both inevitable high rise development and a plethora of tolled roads at the expense of public transport.

Peter Hehir is the convenor of Rozelle Against WestConnex (RAW). He has no political affiliation.