Sydney's underground spaghetti junction opens
smh.com.au
smh.com.au
- lanes that surprisingly lo you into turning off
- lanes where you start in the left, and then find yourself on the right, and unable to take the turn you want (you have to lane-dive across another 2 lanes of traffic).
- confusing split-and-rejoin mechanics that happen for now reason other than apparently “the designer wanted to fit every kind of junction and road shape into their project”
- it’s so poorly designed, if you’re in Balmain (the peninsula side) and you want to get to Glebe/Forest-Lodge/Annandale; you have to spend 5 minutes (per light) in 3 sets of lights, to join all of the main traffic for a grand total of 200m, and lane dive, just to turn off again. For anyone not familiar with Sydney traffic, the “cross traffic” that goes city <—-> west is hideous. If you’re in Balmain, and you want to go the ~1km to Glebe you’re in for pain and wasted time.
Spaghetti junction is an understatement, whoever worked on this, and had any role in it other than saying “this is awful” should be barred from working on infrastructure ever again and be made to sit in the corner and think about what they’ve done.
I grew up in Southern California and there was a notoriously horrible interchange (the 60 / 91 / 215) I had to navigate each day driving to university.
The rumor that people liked to spread (completely unfounded, I’m sure), is that the engineer responsible for it killed themselves because of how bad it was and how many accidents occurred.
I imagine this same sort of rumor is repeated about various interchanges the world over.
EDIT:
There are much more ridiculous looking intersections, but an interesting LA Times article on the interchange from 2007. [1] An improvement project that rebuilt the interchange was completed in 2007. [2]
[1] https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-freeway21sep21-story.htm...
[2] https://www.caltrop.com/project-details/sr60-sr91-i215-inter...
Ah, yeah. It was renovated in 2007. [1] An LA Times article on its reputation is here. [2]
> And there are plenty of accidents. Sgt. Morrison of the California Highway Patrol estimates that his officers respond to about 30 calls a day in and around the interchange. They handle fender-benders, stalled cars and the occasional 20-car pileup.
That said, either way, it is pretty vanilla compared to the legit spaghetti mentioned in the article with regard to the Sydney interchange.
[1] https://www.caltrop.com/project-details/sr60-sr91-i215-inter...
[2] https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-freeway21sep21-story.htm...
I remember reading about these projects when first commissioned and it really felt like more rail was a better investment.
I took the westconnex on a visit a year or so ago. It was freaking empty. I couldn’t believe it.
I moved away a few years ago to a much smaller city (Canberra), and find it's actually more car-centric than where I lived in Sydney, which is a shame. I also see my co-workers (still in Sydney) who have transportation centred around their car, although about half commute via public transport.
Fond memories exploring Sydney, Pyrmont, Balmain etc on a bike. Also enjoyed east side too. Redfern, Surry Hills etc.
I think Sydney is the most beautiful city I've ever visited.
I don't live in Canberra but from my many visits there my experience is that it's harder to go from A to B there than in Sydney (and Sydney is no shining light when it comes to getting about).
That said, Burley Griffin's planning and layout for Canberra is a delight when compared to Sydney's dogleg-like haphazardness. Thus, it's likely that Canberra's openness makes getting about more difficult but there are probably other factors that locals are more aware of than I am.
I suppose I am sensitive to issue because for a period I lived and worked in Europe and my main base there was Vienna. Getting around Vienna is simply a dream when compared to either Sydney or Canberra and I put this down to the way the Straßenbahn (tram) and U-Bahn transport networks work in that they are tightly coupled together in ways that facilitate the easy movement of people.
Somehow, despite the fact that Vienna is a very old city with for the most part very narrow streets, the Viennese have installed a transport network that works extraordinarily well in the circumstances. (I would concede however the city had one advantage in that the old city walls were demolished in the last quarter of the 19th Century which made way for a ring road (Ringstraße) which greatly aids public transport.)
But the Ringstraße was only part of the solution. The main issue, not only in Vienna but in many other European cities is the attitude of city planners. There, much more attention is focused on public transport and it seems this attitude has prevailed for many decades unlike the haphazard planning in Sydney (it's always been a political football here).
Some say we can't plan like the Europeans do as we've not the population density and no doubt that's partially true but for some reason their attitude to planning is much more utilitarian and long-term than here. I think this is the key difference.
Edit: to be fair I must add that in recent years Sydney's public transport has improved significantly even within confines of its existing infrastructure. Whilst some new rail routes/infrastructure have been added what has noticeably improved is the service, buses and trains are reasonably plentiful and importantly are usually on time. This makes public transport much more attractive.
First, you're lucky that you no longer live nearish the nightmare, I still have to use The Crescent to get to Balmain or to Victoria Rd and for a year or so I've avoided the area like the plague.
You shouldn't be surprised though at the stuff-up, Sydney and NSW is known for its fucked-up road system, and halfhearted and incompetent roadways/transport planning which has dogged the city from its colonial days.
For instance, just look at the Eastern Suburbs Railway—why the hell does it terminate at Bondi Junction without going the extra distance to Bondi beach where everyone goes, especially in summer? It not only ought to go there but also complete the circuit across the Eastern Suburbs and end up back on the Southern Line, say at Wolli Creek junction.
Sydney hasn't had anyone of sufficient sense and authority since John Bradfield to plan its transport infrastructure with any degree of competence which is a 100 years ago—and even then his broader more comprehensive plans were thwarted by the shortsighted gnomes in Macquarie St (NSW Parliament). For those overseas, Bradfield was primarily instrumental in forcing through the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge which is now a world landmark: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bradfield_(engineer).
Anyone interested in long-term planning should assiduously avoid moving to Sydney at any cost, if you come here then such notions will quickky evaporate and be replaced with feelings of mañana!
Incidentally, here it seems fitting to mention a once landmark just down the road from Spaghetti Junction that you may recall: The Crescent is one of the main arterial roads that feed into this junction. At its other end at its intersection with Wigram Road there used to be a high Besser block wall that stopped non-payers from watching trotting at Harold Park, scrawled across it were large graffiti that said The Australian people are bloody-minded sheep. That the graffiti remained there for several decades and that no one—not even the Council—attempted to remove it until the wall was eventually removed for apartments development says something very significant.
I always meant to take a photo of it but never got around to doing so. If anyone has a photo of it then I'd dearly love a copy.
You're likely correct about the accuracy of the quotation, unfortunately I don't have a photographic memory.
You're absolutely right about it being remarkable that it was there for years and that no one bothered to deface or paint over it (especially since it was right next to a bus stop). Why no one didn't is a question for sociologists and cultural scientists methinks.
Its longevity turned it into a sort of cultural icon, it's why I'm sorry I never took a photo of it when I had the opportunity. Anyway, I hope someone did so for posterity's sake. ;-)
Sydney has long needed something like Westconnex. Here's what the motorway network looks like:
https://roadsaustralia.weebly.com/uploads/7/7/9/8/77988430/s...
The peninsula to the east where the M1 is the city core and everything around it is very, very densely built up. Before WestConnex, from where I live in the Inner West, getting to the airport, under 10 km away, required zigzagging through residential neighborhoods and going through approximately a million traffic lights. There were no motorways to the city, no motorways away from the city, and no motorways radially around the city either.
WestConnex, the bit in blue, fills all three of these gaps, and since it's all underground it's out of sight and didn't require demolishing entire neighborhoods like previous 1970s-era plans did. And having driven through the newly opened interchange yesterday, I don't really buy all the "confusing" whining either: follow the signs and it'll get you where you want to go, you don't need to worry about 15 other tunnels going in other directions.
The usual argument against building more roads is that they just induce demand and immediately jam up again. This is why I think the high tolls are a feature, not a bug: they ensure people will only use the roads when the time savings pays off. (Although I do wish Sydney would bring in Singapore-style dynamic road pricing instead of flat fare that means the tunnels are sitting around empty on Sundays.)
What you can criticize WestConnex for is the corruption and the opportunity cost: that $18B could've bought a lot of other things too. But on the upside, Sydney is finally getting serious about metro and light rail, so things are looking up on that front too.
There were plenty of houses demolished to build some of the Westconnex developments. The development of the exhaust stacks negatively impacted a lot of local residents as well.
> But on the upside, Sydney is finally getting serious about metro and light rail, so things are looking up on that front too.
Too little, too late. Sydney's metro and light rail are both a complete joke. They're both embarrassingly expensive, and poorly implemented projects.
Unlike Melbourne which has a perfectly rectangle CBD.
Yes, it's a rivalry.
Sydney grew largely organically and is smeared across countless fjord-type bays and stew hills.
It’s truly embarrassing. Would like to see a ban on them working in private industry for two years after they leave office.
Motorways in Sydney have an interesting history. After the Second World War, the County of Cumberland Plan provided for a radial motorway network. In the latter half of the twentieth century, once parts of the network had been built, local residents raised objections and the plan was changed to orbital motorways. For example, the Sydney-Newcastle expressway was supposed to run down through the Lane Cove Valley (near the current path of the M2) and then down to Huntley's Point, and into the CBD via the ANZAC Bridge. This explains the over-engineered junction at Huntley's Point. Similarly, the Warringah Expressway was supposed to run over Middle Harbour into the Northern Beaches, rather than directing the M2 over the Harbour Bridge. That's why it's called the Warringah Expressway despite not going to Warringah.
Sydney suffers from extraordinarily bad design. Lachlan Macquarie's ill-fated attempt to move the colonial capital to Parramatta, leaving Sydney as the port, would have solved an awful lot of problems, but was scuppered by the fact that economic power was held by the merchants, who wanted to stay close to their ships. The NSW Government's Three Cities plan is an attempt to fix this, but will be held back by two centuries of prestige held by the current CBD and its proximity to the North Shore and Eastern Suburbs.
The city also suffers from Menzian urban sprawl. The 'Great Australian Dream' of a quarter acre block with a freestanding house and a car (sewage connection optional) has created vast, unwieldy cities, where high frequency, topologically dense public transport is uneconomical. In the nineteenth-century inner city suburbs, the car is difficult to park; in the other suburbs, it is a prerequisite for civic and economic participation.
Sydney's suburban rail network runs on the same tracks as the regional passenger and freight trains. The fledgling Sydney Metro network incorporates contemporary technology and is fully grade separated, so that delays on one line don't cause a full network meltdown, as happens on the suburban network. However, despite being hailed as a high-throughput commuter network, it has stations further apart than the old railway network, and so is more difficult to use to actually go anywhere.
But China keeps buying the iron ore, so it'll be all right in the long run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiNXIELdZO4
I do like the St Peter's interchange though. It makes it very easy to get from Alexandria to the Blue Mountains without having to drive through the Inner West. The tolls are too damn high though.
No see you’re mistaken, NSW government rarely does infrastructure projects to solve problems, no they do infrastructure projects to funnel public cash to their mates in transport and construction.
Road infra should require zero "getting used to" and should be as boring and unsurprising as possible. Anything else is an accident waiting to happen.