SYDNEY MAY HAVE TUNNEL TO SUPPLEMENT BRIDGE

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27472, 5 October 1954, Page 3

SYDNEY MAY HAVE TUNNEL TO SUPPLEMENT BRIDGE

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

SYDNEY. This city is agog with the revival of a half-century old idea of driving a tunnel under its magnificent harbour to help the traffic problem and provide a getaway from a hydrogen or atomic bomb attack. It has not needed census figures recently released, showing that Sydney’s population is nearing 2,000,000, to make Sydney people realise that they are living with a lot of other people with cars, all wanting to cross the harbour bridge at the same time. When Sydney linked its north and south shores with a 440 feet high, two and three-quarters miles long bridge little more than 20 years ago, it brought economic and social changes not clearly foreseen. The main object of the bridge was to provide a vehicular and pedestrian crossing between the city proper and the north shore section of the rapidly expanding metropolis. The fleet of ferries which fussed between Circular Quay and numerous points on the north side of the harbour carrying 50,000,000 passengers a year seemed likely to remain a permanent complementary transport. Indeed, it was then thought that the ferries were indispensable to people living in thousands of homes built on the water’s fringe miles from the bridge who were almost isolated from any other reasonable means of getting to and from the city. But the steel bridge became a magnet to all traffic on wheels or on foot and, except for a service to Manly, down near Sydney heads, ferries almost died out. The volume of traffic over the bridge now is so great that at every daily peak, its lanes are choked, causing local and chain congestion, economic loss and, according to a man who has revived the tunnel idea, breeding a race of neurotic car owner-drivers. Extreme congestion and long delays occur. This happens when traffic approaching the bridge from 10 lanes has to converge into four lanes to travel on to the Bradfield Highway. Trouble also occurs in side streets giving access to the roadways leading on to the bridge and for a radius of almost half a mile traffic is practically blocked up by waiting vehicles. Expansion on North Shore The existence of the bridge has brought about another development that was not foreseen. It has led to a vast expansion on the north shore and public leaders are already talking about “twin cities of Sydney.” It was

the State Premier, Mr J. J. Cahill, who in a recent broadcast excited Sydney’s imagination by the mention of a tunnel plan which, he said, his Government would examine very closely. It has been revived, he said, by a State Labour member, Mr Clifford Mallam. Mr Mallam has urged the Government to get a quote for the job from the American Kaiser group which is now building a 14Jmile tunnel under the Snowy Mountains as part of Australia’s hydroelectric power project. Mr Mallam said: “The bridge has reached saturation point and is virtually outmoded. The position is chaotic. We must make up our minds at once whether we need another bridge or a tunnel. I still favour a tunnel as the best means of overcoming the problem.” Mr Cahill has not committed the Government beyond yielding to an instant public clamour to call in townplanners, engineers and road experts to find out the feasibility of the scheme. A body of unofficial advisers to the Government comprising newspapers, municipal mayors, town clerks, engineers and spokesmen for organisations affected by the traffic chaos have already volunteered widely varying tongue-tip answers to many problems. Their estimates of cost range from £15,000,000 to £60,000,000. However many millions may be involved, there will necessarily be a long time spent on research, drilling, drawingboard and blueprint work before the Government could even call for tenders. The general idea, and it has not gone beyond an idea, is that a tunnel with four laneways be driven a couple of hundred feet below the surface through the sandstone formation on which Sydney stands. The water to be crossed is less than a mile but the approaches at each end and feeder entrances and exits will mean about four miles of underground tubing. Expert but unofficial opinion is that driving a tunnel through the sandstone under Sydney would be simple compared with engineering achievements that have made the famous Mersey tunnel linking Liverpool and Birkenhead, New York’s Holland tunnel, the Brooklyn of Mantatten, and others. This burst of enthusiasm for ending the “dithering” with traffic problems has produced advocates for another bridge or bridges instead of a tunnel, on the ground that a bridge would be cheaper and more quickly built, but they are in a minority compared with those who want a bomb shelter as well as a traffic route.