Sydney’s vast 33km road and tunnel project to ease connections between the city and the west has become a litmus test for urban planning, as it leaves residents angered by the loss of their homes and critics questioning its value

Under the oppressive heat of a 41C day, two diggers are picking apart a row of boarded-up terrace homes in St Peters, in Sydney’s inner west.



Staff have spilled out of a nearby shop to watch as the machines make short work of brick and tile, reducing decades of history to piles of rubble.



The homes are making way for WestConnex, the nation’s largest road infrastructure project.



They were owned by people such as Pauline Lockie, who bought her family’s first home in St Peters, on the advice from WestConnex it would not be affected by construction.

Months later, the government announced a giant interchange was to be built next to the nearby Sydney Park. Lockie’s home was to be demolished.

“It’s devastating news when you find out you’re going to lose your home,” she says.

“In our family’s case it was our first home, it was the home that we had planned to raise our little girl in, we had actually transferred schools to bring her somewhere nearby.



“To find out that was all getting taken away, and to find out that it was getting taken away for a tollway that’s not actually going to benefit the city, it just makes you so angry.”

The $16.8bn WestConnex project encompasses 33km of new and upgraded roadway and tunnel, designed to improve connections between the city’s east and west, ease congestion and provide an elusive “missing link” to Sydney’s network of motorways.

It would be easy to view WestConnex as a project of local concern, a story of lost trees, destroyed parkland, poor planning and the removal of families from their homes.



What is being done in Sydney is being done in Western Australia, is being done in Melbourne Activist Sharon Laura

Or, as proponents would put it, a tale of nimbyism stymying a project designed to help those in the city’s west overcome the barriers shutting them out of jobs, education and services in Sydney’s centre.



Take a step back, though, and the WestConnex project symbolises much more. It has come to represent how governments plan and build cities in an age of climate change and ballooning metropolitan populations.

Should billions of dollars of public money be poured into new motorways that sting motorists with more and more tolls? Or should taxpayers’ money be directed to rail and other public transport infrastructure?

Anti-WestConnex activist Sharon Laura is fighting to keep her home in the prosperous inner-western suburb of Haberfield, where she continues to hold out in what she describes as a “toxic triangle” of construction. She does so partly because she believes the project has consequences for all of Australia, not just her front yard.

“What is being done in Sydney is being done in Western Australia, is being done in Melbourne,” Laura says.

“There’s an emphasis and a focus now on car transport and inducing traffic, forcing people into cars. That’s truly a last-century solution, the rest of the world is actually ripping up freeways and motorways.

“It’s appalling for all of us.”

‘A community was gone’

The activists gather at a makeshift camp in the corner of Sydney Park, an oasis of greenery in the built-up urban environment of the inner west. Part of the park will be lost to make way for WestConnex, and at least 600 trees removed in and around the park.



The camp has been manned 24 hours a day by protesters who are there to provide an enduring presence, keep an eye on the workers nearby and act as a rallying point for WestConnex opposition.

They are in turn watched by regular police patrols.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demolition under way for part of the WestConnex project near Sydney Park. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Police and protesters have clashed many times, often very publicly, as activists put their bodies on the line to stop work.

The camp is abuzz with the sound of WestConnex work. The grinding of wood-chippers at work can be heard nearby. Not far from the WestConnex protest camp, a sign that reads “tree protection zone” is barely keeping its head above the wood chip.

WestConnex is a bad deal for motorists and taxpayers. Who is it good for? | Chris Standen Read more

The irony is not lost on the activists.



“There’s a metaphor in there somewhere,” says Lockie, who acts as the spokeswoman for the WestConnex Action Group.



There are many aspects of the WestConnex project that have aroused opposition. But none carry as profound a personal impact as the acquisition of more than 200 homes.

In Homebush, 13km west of the city centre, Aurelia Roner-Tyler’s family was nearly torn apart by the decision to stay and fight for their home, or abandon the life they had built to make way for WestConnex.

“I basically lost three years of my life,” Roner-Tyler says. “My husband got really depressed, he had to take 18 months off work as a result, my marriage nearly ended, because both of us wanted different things.

“Forty-three houses were lost in Homebush, where I lived. A community was gone.”

The government says 80% of the homes across the city were acquired through a negotiated process, and that the acquisition process has been improved. But many homeowners felt they had no choice but to abandon their homes.



Many major infrastructure projects require acquisition. That is nothing new. But they all have to justify the heartache and disruption. Is it all worth it?



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Protests against WestConnex target NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian, formerly the transport minister. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The NSW WestConnex minister, Stuart Ayres, is now faced with the tricky task of prosecuting the case for continuing with the project.

Ayres acknowledges the acquisitions have caused pain for families, but points to the benefits for more than two million people in western Sydney, who would be able to gain “access to the vital infrastructure they desperately need and deserve”.

He says disruption was inevitable in a city such as Sydney.

“It’s a big program of work, bigger than anything our city or our nation has ever seen and it’s happening now,” Ayres tells Guardian Australia.

“In a global city like Sydney, that means there will be disruption. But once finished, WestConnex will be the central spine of Sydney’s motorway network, providing a long-overdue underground link between the M4 and M5, creating a seamless motorway without traffic lights.

“It’s not just commuters who stand to benefit, it will make life easier for all the tradies, couriers and freight operators who rely on Sydney’s roads every day. By directing heavy traffic from surface roads into underground tunnels, local streets will be returned to communities.”



But opponents say the benefits of the project have been grossly overstated.

Taking its toll

The justification for WestConnex is largely built around jobs and congestion reduction. All those who have lived in or visited Sydney know the congestion problem is frustratingly real. Earlier this year, Sydney was deemed the most congested city in Australasia. It had slower roads than New York.

Ayres says WestConnex will cut 40 minutes from an average peak journey between Parramatta and Sydney Airport by 2031, and remove up to 50,000 vehicles on some sections of Parramatta Road, a major east-west thoroughfare, including up to 10,000 trucks.

Those numbers, and the assumptions upon which they are founded, are seriously questioned by opponents.

Every day, motorists will be rejoicing, they will be rejoicing, they will be singing in their cars Former prime minister Tony Abbott

To cover the project’s costs, tolls will be reintroduced on a section of the M4 and on the M5 East. Tolls due to end on M5 West by 2026 have been extended.

The maximum distance-based tolls will range from $3.65 to $6.01, depending on the section of road. Those tolls will increase over time, although the premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has signalled there may be toll-free periods and reductions early on.

Within three years of the project’s estimated completion in 2023, it will cost a motorist about $25 for a single round trip along WestConnex. That has raised fears that motorists will simply move on to suburban roads to avoid the new tolls, creating greater congestion on the roads least able to cope.

Ayres says different toll options are still being considered, but they will only apply to new tunnels and widened sections of WestConnex. Capped, distance-based tolls make for a more equitable and fair system, he says.

“Users can expect to have a benefit if they are to pay a toll. WestConnex will change the lives of thousands of motorists every day for the better, and for the many tradies, truckies, mums and dads heading home to get the kids, that day could not come soon enough.”

The construction of new roads is also likely to lead to “induced demand”. Put simply, that means new roads will encourage more people to get into their cars. That is not only likely to contribute to congestion, but will also increase emissions at a time when governments across the world are trying to tackle climate change.

“I think it’s about prioritising what sort of country we want to be and whether we are going to deal with the challenges of our time,” anti-WestConnex activist Emma Bacon says. “As a country looking ahead for sustainable and fair solutions, or just say, ‘let’s hand over cash to the contractors and remain a car-centric city’?”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demolition for the construction of WestConnex has swept away whole blocks of houses and factories. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Federally funded – despite warnings

So far, the delivery of WestConnex has been plagued by problems, with large delays and a cost blowout of $6bn. The project is only at the beginning of the second of three stages.

The creation of the private Sydney Motorway Corporation to oversee WestConnex means key details have been kept from the scrutiny of freedom of information requests.

The NSW government says the SMC model allows it to sell down equity to fund future projects, which means it can effectively recycle its investment in the project. It has also allowed it to fund the project through an initial contribution, supported by funding from private-sector debt and future tolling revenue.

The Abbott government jumped feet-first into the project in the lead-up to the 2013 election, when it committed at least $1.5bn to WestConnex, despite warnings the project was not yet suitable for commonwealth support and had not been properly assessed.

It also offered a $2bn concessional loan for WestConnex, which the auditor general recently found may have been unnecessary and ineffective in its aim of speeding up the project by two years.



Tony Abbott, then prime minister, extolled the project’s virtues while campaigning with the then premier, Mike Baird, before the 2015 state election.

“Every day, motorists will be rejoicing, they will be rejoicing, they will be singing in their cars, because their cars will be moving,” Abbott said. “They will have control over their own lives again.”

Michael De Percy, a University of Canberra political scientist focused on transport and infrastructure, says road announcements are particularly enticing during election periods.

“Politicians have an addiction to announcements,” he tells Guardian Australia. “Part of the problem is that there’s a political process, it’s good for votes, but it doesn’t really help with those longer-term issues.”

A lot of these projections ... overestimate how much the infrastructure will be used Academic Michael De Percy

De Percy believes part of the problem with projects such as WestConnex is that predictions on usage are often inaccurate, simply because there is limited market indication to inform planners.

He advocates consideration of a road pricing system, which would charge motorists according to how far they drive, but compensate them by reducing petrol prices and registration fees.

That would provide the data to help governments better target their infrastructure spending and plan major projects, he says.

“That’s part of the problem, a lot of these projections … not so much deliberately over-inflate, but their guesses are rarely accurate,” De Percy says. “They usually overestimate how much the infrastructure will be used.”

Gabi Brown is one of the younger activists fighting WestConnex. She’s standing at the protesters’ Sydney camp, halfway through explaining her opposition to the project, when expletives are hurled from the open window of a passing truck.



“Get a fucking job!”

It’s not a common occurrence, the protesters say. But it is indicative of the attitude towards them among some in the city.

Lockie has heard it before. She was the target of a similar sledge during a public protest against the tollway.

Lucy Turnbull pleads ignorance of WestConnex heritage house destruction Read more

“I said to him, ‘I actually have a job, a very good job’.”

Lockie is a copywriter for a skincare brand, hardly the occupation of a diehard anarchist.

But the activists at the WestConnex camp are a disparate bunch. Some are active politically with the Greens, others have had their communities disrupted, and many just believe the project does not stack up and is a colossal waste of money.

Lockie believes public sentiment is largely on the side of the protesters, and says WestConnex was a major factor in the falling popularity of former premier Mike Baird before he left office.

“The way that these acquisitions have been carried out has been incredibly unfair,” she says. “Lots of people have contacted the WestConnex action group to share their stories, to say that the government has routinely undervalued people’s properties by hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time.

“That makes the difference, really, between whether you can stay in your community or whether you have to leave.”

A lot is riding on WestConnex. Not only for the Berejiklian government, but for transport infrastructure and planning across Australia. Whether it will be the congestion-buster that Ayres promises is yet to be seen.

But it is already clear that the road to WestConnex’s completion is likely to be a long one for the NSW government.