LORD Mayor Clover Moore will undertake the extraordinary measure of permanently closing council-owned roads to restrict the impact of WestConnex traffic on residents.

Cr Moore has revealed the City would submit traffic management proposals in the coming months to begin the process of closing streets in the vicinity of the St Peters interchange to protect the amenity of the neighbourhood.

She said staff had been investigating the viability of road closures since she swept back into power at last year’s election.

“We’re working at two levels: one is better solutions and the other is to minimise the impacts,” Cr Moore said.

The closure of roads falls into the second camp, a “finger in the dyke” measure aimed at preventing some of the 60,000 vehicles per day driving from the interchange through Euston Rd from travelling onto local residential roads.

media_camera An impression of the future WestConnex interchange at St Peters.

“That main thoroughfare ... (will have) cars trying to get off it, because there’s gridlock there now,” Cr Moore said.

She said the closures would follow precedents set in the 1970s and 1980s, when roads in South Paddington, Redfern and Erskineville were closed to mitigate increased traffic due to development.

“It’s a work in progress,” Cr Moore said.

“We’re still trying to reduce the big-picture impact, meanwhile also working on how we put brakes on that through traffic that will be delivered into residential areas.”

While the City’s eyes were on winning the overall war against WestConnex, “we’ll fight the battles”, Cr Moore said.

media_camera Euston Rd will be widened to cater for increased traffic generated by the WestConnex motorway.

The announcement follows Cr Moore’s first meeting with Premier Gladys Berejiklian, when they spoke about the community’s concerns over WestConnex, detailed in a letter that Ms Berejiklian will respond to at a later date.

A Roads and Maritime Service spokesman said a traffic management plan was required for all proposals to close roads or change existing traffic flow, and that no proposal for this work had yet been received from the City.

He said extensive traffic modelling had been carried out to ensure the St Peters interchange and local road upgrades would be integrated with the surrounding road network.