Sydney's population is expected to hit 7.4 million by 2046, but with overcrowded schools, roads and beaches, residents are wondering if the city is already full.

Australia's largest city has added almost 1 million people since 2000, putting outdated infrastructure under strain.

In March former New South Wales premier Bob Carr warned that visitors to Bondi may soon need to buy tickets and pass through turnstiles to get onto the sand.

Former NSW Premier Bob Carr warned that residents may have to buy tickets to get onto the overcrowded sands of Bondi Beach (pictured)

The population explosion has put pressure on the real estate market, with sky-high prices and ever-increasing population density becoming the norm

Schools are also feeling the effects, with parents struggling to find places for their children

Traffic congestion is a sore point with Sydney motorists, who complain of relatively short journeys that take ages to complete on overloaded motorways

The city's public transport system is also coming in for heavy criticism - and an ever-increasing population will only make matters worse

Exasperated parents are struggling to find spaces in public schools, and year-long waiting lists for daycare centres have become the norm in the city's east.

Meanwhile on Sydney's freeways, drivers have seen commute times balloon due to an increasing number of cars on the road.

Public transport users fare no better, subjected to dangerously overcrowded train platforms, packed carriages and timetabling nightmares that last for days.

Shoppers too face new challenges, fighting for baby formula on shelves which empty almost instantly, and being forced to stand in line to get into designer boutiques.

Australia's population is projected to hit 36million by 2050. Pictured: The population increases in our largest cities

Worse is predicted in years to come, as population densities rise due to a boom in apartment construction and high levels of immigration.

Only Sydney's nightlife seems immune to population pressure, thanks to the city's restrictive lockout laws.

The once-thriving entertainment precinct of Kings Cross empties out by midnight and iconic pubs like the Bourbon are a shadow of their former selves.

Even The Star casino, which mysteriously managed to avoid the same restrictions applied to other establishments, is seeing fewer punters.

Bondi Beach is world famous - and on some occasions, so busy people look like they're packed in like sardines

BEACHES

Anyone who has attempted a weekend trip to Sydney's world famous beaches in recent summers would have found them packed with locals and tourists.

Bondi Beach is now so crowded plans have been floated to sell tickets and install turnstiles to limit access.

'Do you have fences and turnstiles around Bondi, for example, when the population reaches the sort of intensified level that means the roads are choked most days in summer?,' asked Mr Carr earlier this year.

'Do you start to ration access to the coastal path - fences, turnstiles, online ticketing?'

On the other side of the harbour, ferries packed to capacity on weekends deliver thousands of people every hour to Manly Beach, voted Australia's best.

Even beaches which were relatively unknown in previous years - locals' favourites like Freshwater and Tamarama - are now overrun by crowds of sunbathers.

Waiting lists of up to a year for hugely in-demand childcare centres are being experienced in the city's east already

SCHOOLS

Forests of new apartment buildings dotted all over Sydney have resulted in skyrocketing population densities in some pockets of the city.

More people means more demand for public services, and fiercer competition for places in public schools.

In many areas of Sydney, including some of the most sought-after suburbs, schools have been swamped by rising enrolments.

At one school in the leafy north shore suburb of Chatswood, there are 60 girls for every toilet stall, leading to queues at lunchtime and recess.

Students at Chatswood Public School are now forced to use the playground in shifts, as over 1200 students cram into premises built for 800.

The situation in the inner city and inner west an influx of young families is making planners regret closing and rezoning schools in previous decades.

Even in Sydney's west, where infrastructure was designed for growth, schools are running out of capacity.

Camden saw the city's largest increase in enrolments - 2.6 times the Sydney average - closely followed by Strathfield, Holroyd and Parramatta.

Overcrowding is also hitting shoppers, who often encounter long queues and shortages of products such as baby formula

CHILDCARE

Sydney's rising population density is also putting pressure on childcare facilities, especially in commercial areas.

In Barangaroo in the city's central business district, one childcare centre has a one-year waiting list, standard all over the CBD.

One preschool in Randwick, in the city's affluent eastern suburbs, said they still had kids on the waiting list for this year, and over 100 on the list already for next year.

'Parents need to get on the waiting list at least a year in advance, and probably 18 months to be safe,' a staff member said.

The office-dominated districts of North Sydney, Chatswood, Bondi Junction and Parramatta, as well as in the CBD, all have a shortage of daycare facilities.

In other areas of the city there can be an oversupply of childcare spots, but that is no help to those living and working in the city's most densely populated suburbs.

Crowded roads have seen the times for some trips double in recent years

ROADS

Planners are scrambling to provide enough road space for the record number of new cars on the road, but it may be too little too late to cope with the population boom.

The WestConnex, a 33-kilometre motorway project now under construction, will link a number of Sydney's major arterial roads.

However, there are doubts the new scheme will be able to keep pace with the city's growing population.

Commuters have seen the trip from Coogee to the CBD double from 20 minutes to over 40, and traffic on the Eastern Distributor regularly comes to a standstill.

The Great Western Highway, King Street and Enmore Road, William Street, South Dowling Street and Cleveland Street are all a nightmare for motorists.

A behind-schedule light rail project with a blown-out budget is making matters worse, affecting traffic flow throughout the city.

A new timetable implemented in November, coupled with failing infrastructure, has made matters even worse on Sydney's under-stress train network

TRAINS

Drivers who are sick of sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic may be tempted to trade in their car for an Opal card, but the rail network is arguably worse than the roads.

Long-suffering train users have endured a series of nightmarish commutes since Transport NSW implemented their new timetable in November.

Earlier in the year passengers saw nine-hour delays and cascading cancellations that paralysed the entire network three days in row.

While transport bosses blamed the crisis on strike action, employees pointed the finger at the new timetable, a shortage of drivers and failing infrastructure.

A new Metro link has some hoping for respite in years to come, but construction is forcing commuters onto buses replacing lines in the city's northwest.

A boom in the construction of apartments has some experts fearing its effect on Sydney's housing market, but despite that the competition for rental properties remains fierce

HOUSING

Compared to the meteoric price rises of the previous two years, Sydney's housing market has slightly negative growth in the first months of the year.

Despite cooling sales numbers, and fears the city's apartment glut could crash the housing market, competition for rental properties remains fierce.

Auctions for properties within 10kilometres remain hotly contested, and rental inspections are just as crowded as in previous years.

New South Wales Fair Trading caught 18 agents underquoting in just the first two months of the year, a practice keeping housing prices high.

Large crowds for rental inspections and auctions are commonplace

In the year to November 2017 building approvals for new houses and townhouses dipped slightly, but apartment approvals continued to grow.

The same long-term trend has seen suburbs such as St Leonards, Zetland, Green Square, Wolli Creek, Strathfield and Epping transform.

Businessman Dick Smith warned of an end to the Australian way of life if the country continued to accept more than 200,000 immigrants a year.

'You're jammed like a termite in a high-rise, or I say battery chooks,' Mr Smith told Four Corners last month.

'Now we've got 20 storeys and presumably in 20 years' time, the 20 storeys will be knocked down and we'll go to 50 storeys.'

Shopping in the Sydney CBD can be a frustrating experience, with stores running out of stock and long lines for change rooms

SHOPPING

Pitt Street Mall in the heart of Sydney has some of the world's highest rents - the strip was the seventh most expensive globally in 2017.

Sadly, the hordes of shoppers who descend on the district daily mean it is far from a retail paradise.

Flagship stores for brands like Zara and H&M soon run out of stock, and queues for change rooms stretch out the doors.

At designer boutiques like Gucci and Chanel, locals and rich overseas tourists alike wait patiently behind cloth ropes.

At inner city supermarkets parking lots are permanently full, and popular locations like Woolworths and Coles in Potts Point routinely run out of shopping baskets.

Want to escape the overcrowding? Just go to once-vibrant nightspots like Kings Cross (pictured), which are almost devoid of revellers thanks to the city's lockout laws

NIGHTLIFE

Only one aspect of big city living seems unaffected by Sydney's population boom - nightlife.

Under restrictive lockout laws, inner-city bars must refuse entry to anyone after 1.30am and stop selling alcoholic drinks after 3am.

The crackdown has forced several iconic venues to shut down for good, including Newtown Social Club, Goodgod Small Club, Hugos Bar and Lounge and The Soho.

The death of Sydney's nightlife has even led to parliamentary inquiry into the music and arts economy in New South Wales.

Two weeks ago the inquiry revealed dancing, DJs, disco balls and even ukuleles had come under scrutiny by the fun police.

Kings Cross's deserted streets prove that not even huge population increases can outweigh the effect of the crippling lockout laws and barriers to entrepreneurship that have shut down Sydney's most vibrant suburb completely.