RE: Great Western Highway duplication.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"External factors", including the pandemic and increasing construction costs, are causing cost blowouts on Sydney motorways.
The full costs will only be known once the projects are completed.
Planned to aid the state's economy, "a lot of projects are committed in a premature way ... and they don't really know if they are a good solution or a good value for money," said Ms Terrill, Transport and Cities Program Director in the Grattan Institute. "But they promise them and then that's that, they're going to deliver them no matter what."
READ ALSO:
- Letter | Forget the tunnel and have a look at a Bathurst bypass
- New report responds to Great Western Highway upgrade criticisms
- Minister for Regional Roads has written to new federal Infrastructure Minister about highway tunnel
- How does the Albanese government feel about the Great Western Highway upgrade?
- There'll be no change to Blue Mountains tunnel project timing: Toole
Therefore, the planned duplication of the Great Western Highway must be reviewed with an independent evaluation of any of those alternatives that will deliver the very best outcomes for the taxpayer, the freight industry, the tourist industry and the residents of the Blue Mountains.
No-one, and no village, can afford to be a casualty of premature commitments, or sticking to a single plan "no matter what" or of a rushed timetable just because there is a looming election.
Bypassing all the villages in the Upper Blue Mountains will meet the government's objectives of good value for money and a safer, faster and more resilient route for freight, tourists and locals - and maybe even those pollies who travel back and forth from Bathurst to Macquarie Street!
