Federal Member for Banks, David Coleman MP, has told the Australian Parliament that local residents will greatly benefit from the WestConnex.
Mr Coleman said that the WestConnex is “a critical piece of infrastructure” that is “absolutely fundamental to the motorists of my region”.
“An entire new tunnel will be built. You currently have two lanes in each direction, and a new tunnel with three lanes in each direction—six in total—will be built. So we will go from four lanes to 10,” Mr Coleman said.
“If you are living in Beverly Hills, Mortdale, Riverwood, Oatley, Lugarno, Peakhurst, Padstow, or Revesby, or a wide range of other places in my electorate, this is an absolutely critical reform. Because what it means, according to the best engineering advice, is that the peak-hour trip to the city will be reduced by 25 minutes or more.
“There are two elements to the benefits that flow from that reduction in time. One is the productivity benefit, which is great for the economy: less time sitting in traffic in doing nothing, more time to get to your meetings, to get to that next client, or maybe sell some more of the products of the small businesses in my electorate.
“And, of course, there is also the opportunity for people to get home more quickly at the end of a night’s work and spend more time with their families”.
Mr Coleman said the record of the Labor Party in regards to the WestConnex is “appalling”.
“It was, of course, the state Labor government that built the M5 East with two lanes when it really did not take a Rhodes Scholar to work out that two lanes were inadequate,” Mr Coleman said.
“In fact, within six months of it opening in 2001, its capacity had been exceeded. It was built for a maximum of 77,000 cars per day; it is actually servicing more than 100,000 cars every day. As a consequence, the people of my electorate experience gridlock on the M5 East on a daily basis, and that includes Saturdays and Sundays”.