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.