The New South Wales premier has vowed to fix confusing signs that caused traffic chaos for thousands of Sydney commuters as they attempted to navigate the new Rozelle Interchange for the first time.
But Chris Minns ruled out introducing a toll-free period to waive fees for motorists while they became accustomed to the labyrinthine underground junction, even though he conceded the signage was “not good enough”.
The day after the interchange opened to drivers, city-bound traffic was brought to a standstill by confusion over the new Iron Cove Link bypass during Monday morning’s peak-hour rush.
Many motorists either stayed on or merged on to Victoria Road after apparently misinterpreting signage alerting them to the M8 City tollway and not realising the new segment of tunnel – between the Iron Cove and Anzac bridges – was toll-free.
The exact design of the sign was also included in promotional materials released by the NSW government.
Frustrations ran high as some commuters reported only being able to move 50m every 15 minutes, and others said their usual 20-minute commutes took them more than an hour.
Minns said the signage would be changed overnight to inform people they could use a “big chunk” of the new roadway to bypass traffic in the inner west on Victoria Road without paying any tolls at all.
The premier said additional portable electronic signs would “hopefully” be installed later in the day, before the evening peak-hour rush.
“It will get better, GPS will catch up … but I appreciate it hasn’t been good this morning. We want to make sure it runs as efficiently as possible,” he said.
West-bound motorists might be in for more problems as they head back through the interchange on their evening commutes.
People driving from Sydney’s CBD were set to encounter a sign, about halfway across Anzac Bridge, that says traffic in the two left-hand lanes will flow into the tunnel about 500m before its entry.
Motorists who want to avoid the tunnel will need to merge right into the middle two lanes before they get to the Rozelle Interchange, where four lanes of traffic become seven lanes.
The Transport for NSW coordinator-general, Howard Collins, urged people travelling out of the city to use the right-hand lanes if they were going to the City-West Link, M8 or turning on to Victoria Road.
“The first weekday of any new major road opening is always a tough one until motorists become familiar with the new set up,” he said.
Comprised of more than 16kms of underground tunnels, the Rozelle Interchange is a “spaghetti junction” that connects the M4-M8 link with the Anzac and Iron Cove bridges and a future western harbour tunnel.
It forms the final piece of the mammoth Westconnex puzzle, one of the world’s most complex underground road projects.
The government promised new parklands in Sydney’s inner west to appease locals who put up with road closures, blocked streets and constant noise from tunnelling-works during nearly four years of construction.
Those parks were yet to be finished or open to the public by the time the project was completed at the weekend, including one that was being built on top of the Rozelle Interchange itself.
The completion of Westconnex means drivers can now travel from the Blue Mountains, on Sydney’s western fringe, to the Harbour Bridge without encountering a traffic light – for a price.
Tolling giant Transurban, which operates Westconnex, has promised to cap tolls for drivers who travel more than 16kms in one continuous trip on the network at for $11.11 for cars and $33.32 for heavy vehicles.
