‘A tsunami of traffic chaos’: the new Sydney motorway prompting calls for a royal commission

Top expert says bungled opening of Rozelle interchange is bad enough to warrant a formal inquiry into the $20bn WestConnex project

Sydneysiders had been promised “nirvana”^[3] would be delivered by the $20bn WestConnex motorway so they are rightly bemused – if not bitter – about how they seem to have ended up in the other place.

The bungled opening of the final stage of WestConnex^[4], the Rozelle interchange, is bad enough that veteran transport experts such as Michelle Zeibots at the University of Technology Sydney say only a royal commission can open the lid on how such debacles can happen.

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Since the project opened on 19 November, morning drivers have headed into the city and found three lanes on two of the main arterial roads abruptly merging into one. Feeder streets from nearby suburbs were jammed, with movement slowing to barely one block an hour at the worst of the crunch times.

Zeibots says the cycle of costly toll roads that beget new bottlenecks, prompting yet more toll roads, must be broken,