Emergency construction will begin immediately in the hopes of easing congestion on Sydney’s City West Link after traffic chaos was sparked by the new Rozelle Interchange.
The highly anticipated new tunnel has turned travel times from minutes to hours through the inner-west and city this week as “pinch-points” plague the new spaghetti junction.
Roads Minister John Graham was forced to call a crisis meeting with Transport for NSW officials in a desperate bid to ease the gridlock through peak periods.
The work will add a second lane over a 400m stretch before the Anzac Bridge where the City West Link merges with the new Crescent Overpass.
It’s hoped the changes will give motorists more space and safety when merging close to the Anzac Bridge, improving flow.
However, engineers stopped short of completing a whole second lane over a larger section of the road.
Sydneysiders will have to wait a week before the new section is added, with construction predicted to wrap up on December 9.
“Work will begin at night and Transport [for NSW] has already done a lot of work to effectively re-design the road,” he said.
“These are sensible recommendations from Transport for NSW that we believe will make a positive difference to get traffic flowing — but we must be vigilant that we do not simply shift the problem up the road.”
The department is also considering whether to add an extended second lane on Victoria Rd before it merges to join the bridge.
Premier Chris Minns has called for patience while officials pursue ways to fix the traffic nightmare, saying he didn’t “want to repeat the mistakes of the previous government”.
“We also have to take into consideration unintended consequences of decisions that will be made in the heat of the moment that end up being worse for the road network,” he said.