Labor transport spokesman Anthony Albanese says Prime Minister Tony Abbott is poised to break an election promise to begin building work on two key roads projects within a year of the election.

In an October 2012 opinion piece in The Australian Financial Review, Mr Abbott wrote that ''there'll be cranes over our cities and bulldozers working on big infrastructure projects such as WestConnex in Sydney and the East West Link in Melbourne that will be under way within 12 months of a change of government''.

Labor transport spokesman Anthony Albanese. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

But with less than three weeks until the one-year anniversary of the election of the Abbott government, construction work has not begun on either the approximately $13 billion WestConnex project or the $15-17 billion East West Link for the two stages.

Melbourne's East West road project is not due to start until late 2014, according to the project's website, while Sydney's WestConnex road is slated to start in early 2015. Mr Albanese said that with the one-year anniversary approaching ''there are no cranes at work on either of these projects despite the government having handed over funding to start …