The plan
The State and Federal Governments are proposing spending $15 billion dollars (more than $3,000 for every man, woman and child in Sydney) extending the M4 and M5. They are doing this based on a business plan that contains no hard numbers on traffic volumes. Simply to pay the interest on that much money would require half a million vehicles a day to use the new tunnels – more than double the patronage of the current M4 and M5 combined.
From 2019 and 2023, at least, the M5 extension is to end at Sydney Park – as if the surrounding roads were not already at capacity. No modelling on the impact of the additional traffic has been released. There will be widening of the roads immediately next to the park, at the cost of up to 80 houses and a good chunk of Sydney Park, but not the roads they feed.
The government appears to have dismissed public transport out of hand, even though kilometres driven per person are falling, while usage of public transport, cycling and walking are all increasing.
There is no information about where the exhaust stacks will be, or whether they will be filtered.
Sample letters
We encourage you to write to your local MPs, and to one or all of the State Upper House crossbench MPs who hold the balance of power [Click here for contact details].
We don’t want to encourage form letters. Any letter is better than no letter, but a short letter saying what your personal concerns are is is worth more than a long form letter.
To help inspire you in writing your own letter, here are some letters that people have been sending:
Upcoming events
WestConnex Development Authority have upcoming information sessions at:
- Saturday 22 November, 10am to 1pm
Unit B2, 238 Princes Highway, St Peters
St Peters Town Hall (upstairs) - Tuesday 25 November, 10am to 12pm
and 4.30pm to 7.30pm
39 Unwins Bridge Road, Sydenham
There are a number of rallies planned. This is not an exhaustive list:
- Stand up for Sydney!: WestConnex, Planning, Towers, Bay Precinct, CSG, etc.
27th November, 12:00, in the Domain near Parliament house -
WestConnex Community Day of Action
“A fun day for all opposed to WestCONnex: action groups, residents, concerned friends from all over Sydney to come together. Planned in partnership with our friends at Reclaim The Streets Sydney”
13th December, 13:00, Simpson park, Campbell street, St Peters
Action Groups
- WestConnex Action Group
- No WestConnex: Public transport not motorways
- Westcon Community Action Groups
- EcoTransit, Sydney
Reference Documents
- WestConnex Business Case – summary [Preliminary business case only – no hard numbers]
- New M5_Project_Overview
- Household_Travel_Survey_2011-12_(summary)
- WestConnex_M4_Widening_Environment Impact Statement [The M5 Environment Impact Statement is still pending – this is the best we have for the moment]
- WestConnex_New_M5_State Significant Infrastructure_Application_Report
- WestConnex Business Case-FOI results (20 Meg)
Alexandria Residents' Action Group 