Drivers have been left stranded for up to four hours in Sydney’s M4 motorway tunnel within the WestConnex, after fears of a concrete roof collapse which saw the closure of all westbound lanes.
About 6am on Thursday morning, Transport for NSW advised the tunnel was closed westbound between Haberfield and North Strathfield due to “emergency roadworks”.
On Thursday afternoon, the Transport for NSW coordinator general, Howard Collins, said Transurban had made a request to close the road in the early hours after an overnight inspection.
He said engineers had identified an issue with “shotcrete”, a form of sprayed-on concrete which separates the tunnel from a waterproof membrane and the sandstone above.
“The engineers … who were working for Transurban last night discovered a couple of large bulges in the tunnel roof. And quite rightly, for safety reasons, they were concerned that if there was a major issue with this shotcrete, it could fall on vehicles.”
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By Thursday afternoon, Transurban had worked to reopen just one of the three lanes, but Collins said it had made a request to close all lanes again at 10pm to carry out more work on the tunnel.
The NSW roads minister, Jenny Aitchison, said motorists had reported delays of up to two hours, and that she had seen reports on social media of drivers being stuck for up to four hours in the tunnel. She acknowledged road users’ “frustration”, but said the delays were “a failure of privatisation”.
“This tunnel is privately operated, and while Transport [for NSW] has been working incredibly hard to provide offers of assistance and practical support through technical engineering and even materials to try and get this tunnel reopened – at the end of the day, it is a decision of Transurban about how they operate and manage the tunnel.”
Aitchison said there had been an “absolute failure here in communication” by Transurban to advise users about the closure during the morning peak , and said an initial request to provide assistance by Transport for NSW had been rebuffed.
In a statement on Thursday afternoon, Transurban’s general manager for WestConnex, Denise Kelly, said traffic conditions had improved after the reopening of one westbound lane.
She said overnight maintenance work was being done “with a view to reopening all lanes tomorrow [Friday] morning”.
“We sincerely apologise to all motorists impacted by this issue,” she said.
The government is in complex negotiations with the company, which has a majority stake in the state’s private motorway tolls – including WestConnex assets such as the M4 – to unify tolling in the state.
Aitchison said Transurban had indicated to her that it would be refunding tolls collected from affected road users.
Collins said he needed assurance from Transurban on the “structural integrity of the tunnel” before it could reopen on Friday.
“If their prognosis is that it is just the waterproof membrane and the shotcrete, they will remove it and make sure it’s safe and make sure no other materials can have the possibility of falling on to motorists.”
He said the “ironic thing” about Transurban’s extensive tolling infrastructure is that it would enable Transport for NSW to see exactly how bad delays were.
“We will know when people enter the tunnel, when they’ve exited, because the toll machines give us that forensic information.”
“So we will go through that with them to understand when this started to become a problem, and what was the worst journey.”
