Expressways From Everywhere

The Northern tip of Rockdale is planned as the hub of a giant expressway network under the RTA's new scheme for the M5 tollway extension. New expressways would converge on the area from the north-west (along the Cooks River Valley), from the south, (through Rockdale) and from the south-west (via the Wolli Creek Valley). These new roads would at first be linked to the city centre by General Holmes Drive and later by a network of feeder roads through Alexandria and Redfern.

The new M5 alignment has been introduced without fanfare. Knowledge of it began to filter out recently when staff at the office of 'M5 East' EIS consultants Manidis Roberts began to mention the new route to members of the public who called with inquiries. Longtime observers of the RTA had suspected a change was afoot in July, when the RTA applied to the Department of Planning for changes in special conditions applying to the environmental impact statement for the road.

Scaled down
At around the same time the RTA scaled down its preparations for a new environmental impact statement for the Eastern Distributor. This network of upgraded roads in Alexandria is intended to carry the vastly increased volumes of traffic expected after the completion of the M5 to the heart of the City and the Harbour Bridge. The authority's representatives told community groups in Alexandria that,although they had previously been pushing to complete with new impact study by late this year, they were now more relaxed about the Eastern Distributor and would resume the study next year. The RTA has postponed the Eastern Distributor study only because it will not be needed in the first stage of the new strategy.

The authority's current plan is to terminate the M5 with an 'illogical' south-easterly loop: an anomaly which could later be used to justify further extensions to make it more 'logical'. These extensions would be the RTA's long-planned F6 and the Cooks River expressways.
The authority will try to 'sell to Rockdale residents and their council by claiming that its main intention is to get heavy trucks off Rockdale's streets. Nothing could be further from the truth. The completion of the M5 is designed to 'support' sprawling, new, car-dependent suburbs on Sydney's south-western outskirts. The additional vehicles which the M5 is designed to encourage will flood the inner south-western suburbs as well as tollway access points such as Beverley Hills.

The RTA's 1989 environmental impact statement for the M5 (it was then called the F5), predicted the road would carry 60,000 vehicle movements a day. This would be a 40,000 increase on the number of vehicle movements in the last section of the M5 which now finished at King Georges road.

Urban Decay
If they were ever carried out, the RTA's plans would turn the inner-south-west into a highly [polluted urban nightmare of elevated and ground level motorways. Local streets would become a network of feeder roads and pleasant neighbourhoods would become islands cut off by rivers of concrete. Most local parks and greenspaces would be destroyed or severely degraded. Urban decay - the blight that has afflicted scores of American cities - would begin to set in across the whole area. There is an environmentally sound alternative to the RTA's plans, the AirportLink rail plan. Fortunately, this proposal can get cars off our streets and cut air pollution. Fortunately, it's backed by Rockdale council.

Canterbury council is another matter. Canterbury residents should demand that their council reverses its stand in favour of the M5 and fully backs the push for more and better public transport. With the advent of the 'new' M5 route the gloves are off. The RTA is making clear its intention to proceed with the Cooks River freeway in the not-too-distant future. Rockdale and Canterbury residents will be right to indignantly reject the RTA's plans for the region, which are barbaric and outdated. Rail is the way to go.

New Expressway Threat To Southern Sydney

In a desperate bid to salvage its discredited plans for three giant expressways in southern Sydney the RTA is investigating a new route for the proposed M5 motorway extension.

The new route would put in place sections of both the F6 freeway and the Cook's river freeway, roads which the RTA has, until recently, denied any intentions of proceeding with it in the short term (see Expressways From Everywhere)

The new M5 route would see the proposed tollway extension double back on its basic north-east route and run south-east through Arncliffe, Kogarah Golf course and Barton Park to join General Holmes Drive at Kyeemagh.

The RTA has longstanding plans for both the Cooks river Valley freeway and the F6 but senior RTA planners now believe the authority will be forced to surrender the corridors reserved for the two roads if it does not make a start on them.

Rail Proposal
Over recent months the RTA's plans for the billion-dollar M5 extension have run into increasing problems from the competing Airport RailLine proposal.
This underground line proposal would link the East Hills line with the Illawarra line, the airport and the Central industrial Area before rejoining the main line at Redfern. The new line represents a chance to save all the region's remaining open space, to get thousands of cars off the roads and to kick-start urban renewal projects in run down industrial neighbourhoods.

To make matters worse for the RTA, a political question mark now hangs over the Fahey government's relationship with the InterLink tollway consortium - lessees of the already completed section of the M5 (see page 8 of the lease document.The RTA's new route for the M5 is political strategy rather than a traffic solution. Its aim is the survival of all the RTA's destructive road plans for Sydney's south.

The new strategy has been made necessary by increasing pressure on the roads authority from three directions.
In the first place the F6 freeway would swallow up virtually all the open space on the east side of Rockdale - a narrow chain of parks and ecologically important wetlands cherished by local residents. Community groups and some Rockdale council aldermen believe the F6 reservation should be handed back to the public as open space and are becoming increasingly
vocal about the F6 threat. Sutherland Shire residents' groups are also upset over the F6 proposal and
suggestions from some quarters in Sutherland Shire Council that sections of the F6 between Miranda and Taren Point should be built.

Deal With RTA
Pressure is also being brought to bear on the RTA from Canterbury Council. The majority faction on this council has long sought a deal with the RTA; they would support the routing of the M5 through the Wolli Valley open
space provided the RTA abandoned its plans for a freeway along the Cooks River Valley. The RTA has carefully and cynically exploited this situation for 15 years. RTA planners have repeatedly intimated to Canterbury Council that the authority might be prepared to give up the Cooks River freeway plan once it had the M5 in place.

Stake Claim
But the RTA planners have never had the slightest intention of giving up the Cooks River freeway route. They have now decided they had better stake their claim to it before political pressure to give up the proposal grows too powerful to resist.

The third assault on the roads authority comes from growing public perception that the RTA is pushing Sydney down a road nobody wants to travel. The RTA's expressway building drive is simply generating more
traffic and pushing Sydney into a Los Angeles future of gridlocked traffic, increasing smog and massive State debt.