Sydney's $5BN Tunnel U-Turn
Building a new highway under Sydney Harbour is turning out to be VERY difficult.
See how Bluebeam enables massive projects like this - bit.ly/3XzZ5Ip
Full story here - www.theb1m.com/video/sydney-h...
This video contains paid promotion for Bluebeam. See how Bluebeam's software speeds up public sector projects - bit.ly/3XzZ5Ip
Additional footage and imagery courtesy of State of New South Wales/Transport for NSW, Herrenknecht AG, Aidia Studio, Amit, Duzy Bertha, Kearon de Clouet, Mumbai Coastal Road Project, 9 News Australia, OpticalTwelve, 7NEWS Australia, Sky News Australia and State Government of Victoria Australia.
Listen to The World's Best Construction Podcast by The B1M
Apple - apple.co/3OssZsH
Spotify - spoti.fi/3om1NkB
Amazon Music - amzn.to/3znmBP4
View this video and more at - www.TheB1M.com/
Follow us on Twitter - / theb1m
Like us on Facebook - / theb1m
Follow us on TikTok - / theb1m
Follow us on LinkedIn - / the-b1m-ltd
Follow us on Instagram - / theb1m
Go Behind The B1M. Click "JOIN" here - bit.ly/2Ru3M6O
The B1M Merch store - theb1m.creator-spring.com/
#construction #architecture #infrastructure
We welcome you sharing our content to inspire others, but please be nice and play by our rules - www.theb1m.com/guidelines-for-...
Our content may only be embedded onto third party websites by arrangement. We have established partnerships with domains to share our content and help it reach a wider audience. If you are interested in partnering with us please contact Video@TheB1M.com.
Ripping and/or editing this video is illegal and will result in legal action.
© 2023 The B1M Limited
It's a boomerang move
you don't know sydney like I do, the iron cove bridge takes you to the gladesville bridge, yes over anzac bridge through victoria rd. Concord bridge is the main south to north route ,so there are 3 ways south to north and visa versa, over the parramatta "river". You can go to paramatta and avoid any "river" crossing, or just take the ferry from circular quay to manly, and get caught up in the tourist loop, you are welcome
One more lane. Just one more lane.
Baddum tsssss!
nice
Balance needs to be had in cities. Space for vehicles needs to be made and space for public transportation needs to be made. All your goods in a city come from trucks and transport vehicles, reduce the time it takes to get these goods and the price of the goods will come down. Sufficient public transportation is needed as cars are an expensive burden that most people can't afford.
Just one more lane, guys. Trust me, it's gonna work this time for real.
it will be full of cars in 6 months, another failure
this is not america
@@shrgn how does that make a difference.
@shrgn it dosent mater where it is , car infra is always a disaster in terms of moving a lot of people and goods
@@shrgn induced demand applies everywhere not just the US
Recently visited Sydney. As an American I was shocked how mild the traffic was and how great the mass transit was...kind of sad to see more focus on cars and highways. The Sydney metro already handles 1.3M journeys per day. Why not spend this on improving the metro? This tunnel is larger in diameter than a metro tunnel and yet will likely move fewer people.
great point, but there is is also a lot of work ongoing on new lines for the Sydney metro
@@flynncollins6930 well the traffic will not get any better, if the amount being spent on roads will stay that much bigger than the amount spent on public transport
We are building / getting a whole new Metro / Subway. :) it’s due to open in 2025 I believe. It’s a huge project. I have lived in Sydney for 2 years. I came up from 3 years in Melbourne. Sydney public’s transport is quiet good once you figure it out. I take the ferries often and I love “taking a boat to work” the trains are good also. They need do need more trams and more frequent. The Melbourne tram network was fantastic. I love living in Sydney. Amazing city.
Mild!?
Sydney Metro's City & Southwest extension is right next to the West Harbour Tunnel, and is planned to open in 2024. They don't exactly go to the same places but is nevertheless a great alternative for crossing the harbour.
Just a quick correction: The ANZAC bridge doesn't cross Sydney Harbour. You're thinking of the Gladesville and Iron Cove bridges. The ANZAC bridge replaced the older Glebe Island bridge for getting to the inner West from the city. Other than that, a good video and very informative.
Technically Gladesville & Iron Cove bridges cross Parramatta River, no?
The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment, You create a good future by creating a good present.The key to financial freedom and great wealth is a person's ability to convert earn.ed income into passive income to build generational wealth ,this trick has never failed .I pray this new year gives you more opportunities to achieve your goals
I urge everyone to start somewhere now no matter how small, this is literally the time for that, forget material things, don't get tempted,
i became more better and aware the moment i realized this.
That's true , In-vesting in bit coin now is the best thing to do especially with the current state in the market
people are really making a lot of money from it... . .
therefore in-vesting in it wouldn't be a bad idea 💡
This is going to help traffic... for a very short amount of time. Then induced demand is going to push it right back up again. Sydney needs more public transport, not more roads.
but then how would the people who own the roads get rich?
True, every time I go to sydney I like it less. Traffic is a huge issue. Way to car centric. Allthough it does seem like bike lanes are being built, bur a better metro is definitly needed.
Nimby: sO yOu wAnT mOre tRafFic?
@@aqidon its underconstruction at the moment. But also there are alot of different types of transportation like sydney metro, sydney trains and light rail around the city to the west
why isnt everyone there driving a e-bike? its warm all the time....and you can have a "umbrella roof" abowe your bike or a hat so you wont get a heat stroke
If no alternative transport is implemented at the same time, it will just maintain the status quo of trying to keep up with ever increasing car use. I agree that a new connection is desperately needed, but not nearly as much as viable, affordable, round-the-clock public transit. Great video!
Transit sucks. I prefer my car so I tell my politicians to give me more highways.
@@musqul8566 And they will give you more highways, so you'll have more ways to be stuck in traffic.
@@musqul8566 If you wanna suffer, then suffer, just don't make others suffer for your uninformed opinion.And more importantly: don't make them pay money for it.
@@musqul8566 then don’t live in a city, they’re not meant for cars
Actually, there is (sort of). Sydney Metro's City & Southwest extension is right next to the West Harbour Tunnel, and is planned to open in 2024. They don't exactly go to the same places but is nevertheless a great alternative for crossing the harbour.
Hi there, thanks for the video, as an employee of the Acciona in Sydney, really cool to see this level of information made available to everyone with great visuals. Cheers
is your nickname at work, Tunnel Bora?
@@andys31337 good one dad
A lot of people here don't understand that this is only in part to alleviate traffic. Those that live in Sydney know just how insanely crucial Sydney Harbour Bridge is to keeping this city even functioning. You take it out in any disruption and more than half the city comes to a grinding halt and can't move towards the CBD as it has not only car traffic but huge train and bus network impacts. We desperately need harbour crossing infrastructure that is not linked to the bridge so that when disruptions happen, there is still an alternative. The other thing is people think this is the only megaproject happening. Theres a whole swathe of both road and metro projects going on at the same time including another harbour crossing metro set to open in a year.
👏👏👏👏
Sydney needs a few more bridges and tunnels to build resilience into its system. Sydney and NSW has all the resources and expertise it needs to do that. What Australia needs to do is to build out its industrial manufacturing base and turn all those natural resources into products that he world needs.
Tunnel the whole city!
Thank you. An actual sane and rational comment. Not just ridiculous anti car crap hysteria that Fred apparently buys into given the likes this channel gives every comment whining about cars.
Liberals hate cars because they have to pay for them. Much easier to take the public transit that way u can be high on pills on the way to pick up your welfare check
As a Sydneysider I have to commend the effort you’ve put into this, a lot of KZheadrs get things wrong about Sydney given that we’re on the other side of the world but you were bang on the whole video. Great vid!
@@Ethan-zr6ee It's funny that after all mention how the World is small the world is actually still not so small that 1 can also know about every major change what is happening near him.☺
Well… it’s a great video except when he said our lack of public transport. We have trains, buses, lightrail and ferry services. Not that any of them are particularly groundbreaking or amazing - but we do definitely have a decent amount of public transport options available to us.
@@rogeh5687 questionable actually for a lot of people. Lots of buses from the North Shore have extremely long queues in the mornings, to the point of making them unfeasible for people to use public transport. Trains are a bit better, but certainly no seating for a lot of people
@@rogeh5687 Really?😳 Awesome!😃 And I already thought that, apart from the 1 mentioned by the author, everyone is forced to wait for the Kangaroo bags and sleds pulled by Koalas.🤣
@@rogeh5687 I agree, public transport infrastructure has not been forgotten, with the Chatswood to Bankstown section of the northwest metro and the parramatta metro soon to double the rail access to the city from the north, south and west. Plus the inner west light rail along with the new eastern suburbs light rail providing greater access from these areas Sydney's public transport is getting a huge upgrade
Trust me bro, just one more lane...
I worked on the Sydney Harbor Tunnel in the early 90's. dredging was quick and easy and didn't make much impact on the environment because of strict measures that were taken. Now we have NIMBY's Not In My Backyard, when they bought into one of the largest and fastest growing cities. Sydney International Airport has a curfew because of these NIMBY's. I think it is the only International Airport in the world that has a curfew because of people that bought into property close to the airport but then complained about the noise.
NIMBYs truly are the worse, the halted rail construction in the eastern suburbs and on the north shore. They also arrive after areas that generate crowds and noise and complain despite knowing what type of area they are moving into, Luna Park and the airport are key examples of this
these people also halted bike infrastructure everywhere, not giving the bike a chance of a fair go (with some safety infrastructure), where other countries have successfully integrated bikes into their daily networks.
Just like the people that built houses near Lucas Heights 😂 after it had been built!
thank u for your work
To be fair the critique of "one more lane wont work" is reasonable the rest is bullshit
I remember back in 2015 I was cycling from Adelaide to Cairns and when passing through the Sydney cbd I saw a sign for the opera house pointing into a tunnel. I cycled into the tunnel and realised it was a motor way too late. Brutal dangerous driving. I fucked up so bad. Adrenaline got me through. I just kept riding and riding past the point where my legs went to jelly. I must of been going around 45kmph. Traffic in the dark all around me. The smell of fumes and the rushing sound of cars speeding through and honking at me to get out. the only way out was through. In total I was in there for just a few minutes but it was so intense it felt like a lifetime. Seeing the light at the end was one of biggest reliefs of my life. I’ll always remember the smiling drinking road workers at the end. As a made the climb out and swerved into the hard shoulder they stood there stunned for a moment that I cycled through. To save me further drama they helped me get my bike out a workers exit and wishes me well
I love how you just casually mentioned you were cycling from ADELAIDE TO CAIRNS, like yeah... one day I was cycling to work and went down the tunnel by accident. That's god level peddling right there.
It was you! :)
oh you Adelaide folk 😆
The tunnel is quite well lit. You are a liar.
I’m from Auckland in New Zealand and I travel to Sydney a lot, although road traffic is bad the public transport is actually pretty good, they have rail, buses, light rail and also an expanding metro system. Compared with in Auckland we have really poor public transport with a limited rail network and buses and that’s it.
yeh, Sydney's public transport is bad compared to places with the best public transport in the world but it's still leagues above most places
hell yeah
People in Auckland are such polite drivers. Love visiting Auckland
@@intuitivediane mate what part of Auckland were you driving in haha? we get almost nothing but road rage at Cascades Roundabout. others places in East Auckland are just drivers being stupid or driving slowly.
I always love your videos about Australia! great research and you always seem to know the issues. Keep it up
How long do they think those percentages at 2:22 will be true for, it still amazes me roading planners still don't understand the concept of induced demand yet.
no need to worry in sydney since every new road has a heavy toll attached to it. probably an anecdote but ive heard sydney is the most tolled city in the world. do a lap and youre up for $50. im all for extra public transport infrastructure and that is being built, so im not going to turn my nose up to extra car infrastructure that will greatly benefit the city. australia is a country as large as the us with a population less than a 10th the size. cars are vital, and must be accommodated. but the more public transport there is, the happier i am.
They’ll probably say it’s a “heavy trucking route” and use that as an excuse for making the highway. Another huge highway is backwards
@@iris4547 The size of the country is completely irrelevant. We're talking about urban transport here.
@@iris4547 90+% of Australia’s population lives on the eastern/southern coast and Perth. Most of the country’s land is unpopulated. Cars are not vital
@@elliotwilcox6900 cars are vital once you get outside of those major cities tho, say newcastle, central coast etc, theres only one train line, the bus networks are in shambles and there is no metro's like sydney, melbourne or perth, you are kidding yourself if you think vehicles are not vital in this country.
One more lane will fix it...
5:00 You could fit four railway tracks in a double-stack configuration in that big of a tunnel, each of which could be carrying tens of thousands of people per hour. Instead we have highway lanes serving 1500 people each.
Our state government is all about taking our tax money, selling off public assets to private sectors to make more money off of us, instead of using OUR money to actually serve us. The road tolls in Sydney are beyond.
We already have a huge railway system… adding in more wouldn’t be that useful.
@@philliplhunter well the sydney rail network lacks a lot of circumferential connectivity.
@@williamhuang8309that is why there is a metro
I'm not aware of the % grade of the end product incline, however I suspect it's unlikely a train could climb out of the tunnel.
I remember in 2007 when QM2 and QE2 visited the port in tandem. It was the first time two giant Cunard ocean liners had visited the city since 1940. The crowds approached 1m people and brought the entire transport infrastructure to a standstill. Ferries were late. Train services delayed. Busses in gridlock. Taxis couldn’t get through crowds. It was remarkable.
I remember that as I live in the area it was stunning to see the impact it was impossible to get anywhere by anything accept by foot it was gridlocked for hours in every direction. It is also a nightmare if anything gets stuck in the tunnel which thankfully hasn't happened for a while.
I live near the construction zone - some of it almost directly under me on a lower north shore peninsula, and I can tell you right now that I’m looking forward to it being completed in conjunction with all our Metro, light rail, and new airport projects. Also, I can’t say Sydney traffic is great but compared to some of the major cities in the region that I’ve visited, like Jakarta, Surabaya, Semarang, Yogyakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Bangkok, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, Kathmandu, and Colombo, it isn’t that bad… so let’s not get ahead of ourselves with how terrible it is.
Your comparing it with cities from developing countries. Not a fair comparison. Use cities from Europe, US, Japan or China for comparison.
Bangkok had the worst traffic I've ever seen in my life
Sydney is bad. Every city you have listed each of them have the population of Australia living in them.
Glad that everyone in the area aren't NIMBYs.
I spent a week in Sydney and had a car the whole time. I concur, the traffic was not bad at all. Likely due to the fact that tolls reduce the propensity to drive.
Always nice seeing Aussie videos from your channel, more please!
You support this intercity highway project ? Why not buy a home where you work ?
@@lucasrem have you seen the prices?
As someone who lived in Sydney for a lot of my life you tend to get used to the Traffic, but also the high amount of public transport gets you literally everywhere around the city, from a train from the central of the city all the way to Newcastle, or a bus from Luna Park to the centre of the city taking only less than 10 mins or the metro! I think our city is way better than many other cities when it come to car alternatives as well as traffic.
you could not have been more wrong.
@@tazz347 how is that? Outside of highly developed and populated places such as Europe and Asia where can you find somewhere with public transport as good as it is here in Sydney? A lot of cities the same size or even bigger wish for even a train service and here we are fortunate enough to have an extensive urban rail network as well as intercity and regional rail network
thank you for this video, i live in sydney and had no idea about this project. this video shed light on it, thank you
amazing video guys as always! I think Lower Thames Crossing is going to have over 16m in diameter and is also 3 lanes. So seems like pretty similar project. Maybe something to make a video about (not sure at what stage the project is currently tbh)
Also the very controversial Silvertown Tunnel!
@@memofromessexthanks for pointing that out! I’ve had a look and seems like Silvertown tunnel is going to be roughly 12m so a bit smaller tunnel and probably 2 lanes.
Lower Thames Crossing and Silvertown Tunnel can do one, that same money could be spent on decarbonising our infrastructure. If you want a tunnel, let it be Tram/ Bus only...
@@Garner84 You will have more success explaining to car lovers in a CITY that their own self interest is to get other drivers off the road I.E. any forms of public transport means better driving experience; instead of worse with induced demand.
They needed the 5Bn of taxpayers money for the new vaxxine manufacturing plants in Australia, making 100million boosters that nobody wants
What we need in a hurry is an improved access to the cycleway across the bridge. The cycleway on the western side is brilliant, but the north-end stairs prevent a lot of riders accessing it.
An agreed design is complete, but Milton's point residents still trying to block this one
Milson's*
@@aussieL14M why doesn't that surprise me
@@aussieL14M The new Mayor & GM are fairly both fairly progressive, so hopefully they can help move on from the noisy privileged strata dwellers of MP. The current design looks OK to me, though I hope they replace the palms that need to be removed on the N end.
sydney just had its hottest summer in recorded history but there still making roads for more cars and not bicycles! at least people can try to live in these tunnels when its to hot to live outside
Awesome project! Keep up the good works, B1M Team!
thank you for consistently putting out top quality content.
This is such a well produced segment - graphics, voice over, overlay are top notch.
The Sydney log jam. Getting across town can take hours and cost a small fortune in tolls. At least the Metro has made life easier for those lucky enough to live/work nearby a station. They should prioritise it’s expansion before building more toll roads.
They are, set to open(?) in 2025
I mean there are currently 2 new lines and an extension to the current line set to open, only 1 of them is looking at serving a new area though with the extension being a couple extra stations in the CBD and converted train stations. The line to Parramatta isn't too far off the current train line but they aren't going to building many stations, even in places where they would be ideal
Watching this from sydney and its raining right now
Same haha
Watching this from London and it's -1°C and bright sun, if that helps.
Same here, watching from Sydney
loved the voice change/shift when reading a quote from the newspaper. And nice video too, thanks!
Thanks B1M for the video. Great introduction. 👍😊
I live in Sydney. Born and raised. The population is out growing transport infrastructure. Estates and new housing are being slated for approval without consideration for public transport. Hell, places with roads too narrow for garbage trucks are getting approved.
I freaking love this channel specially when they do videos about the city i live
Thanks for doing doing an Awesome Sydney Infrastructure Video!
Thank you for sharing. I had family there in Sydney for a couple of weeks visiting other family there.
Love your videos especially about my home town! Can I ask if you would want to look at the WestConnex scheme? It's huge and like this video has a lot of pros and cons
Having worked on the design of this project, I feel proud to see a video on your channel 😊
Great presentation - thanks
Great video, I was born in Sydney and spent my early childhood there, though I must admit I haven't been there since my teenage years 10-15 years ago. Nevertheless, It's a beatiful place I'm fond of, so naturally, I love keeping up with all the considerable infrastructure changes over the years. This was a fascinating video, cheers for the quality content.
Changed a lot since then, they redeveloped the 1988 bicentennial projects again from the 2000 Olympic projects to massive lend lease projects, im sure it all looked good in autocad, my only complaint is it all looks a bit samey samey, I prefer the layered sydney with 60 year old buildings wedged up against 20 year old buildings most building projects these days look like an apple store on steroids.
This project makes me think of the Oosterweelverbinding project in my home city Antwerp. Would be a nice video as well!
I agree, it's a very interesting project with lots of history and different variations
true
They could have just built a lot more metro lines and that would have done them better in reducing traffic than a tunnel which will end up not doing too much in the end
@DJ_CodNub No metros that cross the harbour *in the west* are planned edit: I meant in the west, I have no idea how I didn't write that mb
@DJ_CodNub if you consider the amount of road infrastructure we have built compared to metro it isn’t alot.
@@biosparkles9442 Apart fom the one already built beteem Chatswood and Sydenham
@@biosparkles9442 What about Victoria Cross to Barangaroo?
@@biosparkles9442 3 comments on this channel. All 3 BLATANTLY WRONG!!! Stop guessing. You’re literally TRYING to be outraged… Like a Karen.
This is the best channel for Engineering/Infrastructure, bar none. I absolutely love it.
Great channel, thank you for videos.
Loving these videos! Please do one on Brisbanes cross River rail and all the new projects coming up for the Olympics!
Brisbane is amazing, I love everything they do for the people. Bridges to cross the city by foot or on a bike. Walking lanes and bike lanes everywhere. Sydney has much to learn from Brisbane.
@@virgola2126 Yes, a government of the people for the people; not of the bankers, for the bankers.
Cross the city by foot or bike isn't the main priority of Sydney, actually people can walk across the city whenever they like, on the other hand Brisbane has much to learn from Sydney about mass transportation system.
@@virgola2126 the advantage that Brisbane has on Sydney is that it is not as built up as Sydney therefore they can learn from all the hiccups that Sydney had for planning purposes…construction workers fifo into these cities across the country not just in the mining industry
Ironic that I'm from Sydney and I've learnt a lot from this video ! haha Had no idea apart from there being a west link tunnel being built somehow, so thanks for the info ! It was an interesting watch as always. + Keep up the good work, really enjoy this channel purely out of my natural curiously and wanting to learn. ⭐ Gold star for u
Oh wow I didn’t know and I live in sydney! 😊 love the info & delivery of info
Started watching with 9 hours after it was published went to work and finished it 16 hours after and it was already trending on youtube- Good for you B1M! Love your content!
As an American now living in Sydney, the public transport here is miles ahead of what we have available back in the States so much that I don't miss driving all that much. The wide array of rail, light rail, busses and ferry services are excellent to get around with.
they love their cars in america. i am sure some cities embraced public transport.
In Sydney the government always plugs the gaps between motorways with toll roads and then they wonder why the traffic is still bad on the old road
yeah car based infrastructure is v expensive
Toll roads are just so annoying, especially in busy places like Sydney
@@lotni just one more lane will fix it I’m sure
If you want to reduce traffic putting a toll on a road is going to do the opposite and is only going to serve to create more congestion while increasing tax revenue. This new road connection only serves to create a new source of tax income for the city.
@@bababababababa6124 Idk, it might be, but I wouldn't think so tbh
Always down for a new podcast recommendation. Thanks.
As a Sydney resident since birth ( and a lover of this channel) I was shocked by the misinformation about Sydney. The traffic isn’t that bad as most people take public transport to the city for work… and the transport options are great (train, bus, ferry, cycle lanes everywhere, light rail/tram). The traffic we do have across the bridge / harbour is mostly attributed to the city being split more now than ever… north Sydney was never that big, so there has been an increase in commercial-related traffic but not too much. Our roads are really pretty amazing, and the investment is impressive. To get out of the city it used to take 45-75 mins (potts point to Hornsby)… now we can do it in c20 minutes. Thanks to forward planning like this the surface roads have seen huge decreases in traffic.
Cycle lanes in Sydney are really poor compared to the rest of Australia
I also agree with this assessment, the traffic in Sydney isn't as bad as this video makes out, sure, there are traffic events that cause cars to slow to a crawl but to warrant a 5 billion dollar new road way, is overkill on a massive level. What really needs to be asked in regards to this project is: 1. How many local based politicians will find this new section of road beneficial to them personally. 2. What level of back-scratching was done between the politicians and the construction company, typically, someone will know someone or owe a favor or two?! Regardless, it's a complete waste of money that will eventually come in well over budget, like all government building projects do.
Why direct all traffic through Cities, Australia is empty land, that needs better planning ! Better u use public transport for that ! Alicespings has a Train Station too!
As someone who's only spent the 2nd half of my life in Sydney, I'd disagree about the traffic not being bad. You might be used to it as it's your norm, but come from the outside, or go live somewhere else for a while, and your perception might change :)
Top quality content from a Top Quality Channel. Keep up the good work
Literally he brings us the latest and greatest from sydney LIVE
Can you please cover more tunnel building techniques that are being used around the world? Fascinated by the pre-fab stuff.
thank you for the infos
As always amazing video, I didn`t know that Acciona was in this project, amazing spanish company, Viva España!!
On the topic of Australian traffic projects, the North-South corridor in Adelaide could be a good piece to have a look at… very expensive, a lot of engineering involved and quite a large timeline.
you're lucky to have sydney in this, absolutely nobody cares about Adelaide's infrastructure
That last bit through Thebarton is going to be a big bloody job!
man that is a ludicrous road. extraordinary cost for something extremely ineffective.
Hi B1M team. I don´t know if this might interest you but i live in Queretaro, Mexico, and we are in the middle of the biggest reconstruction of our main highway. Our city and our highway connects a huge part of the country. And it is said that this project is set to finish in this year. Maybe this project can be in one of your next videos. Best regards.
Mexico has joined it self to the US/Canada market economy and it is booming and it has not even entered the next phase of that economic market which will be even more powerful. Mexico is now one of the US largest trading partners and has overtaken China in that regard.
Such a beautiful harbour.
thanks for plugging the podcast - I shall now go and join :-)
One major difference withthis project is the planned three lanes in each direction. When I first came to Sydney I couln't believe the various tunnels were contrsucted with only two lanes in each direction. so WHT is an outlier from that perspective. However I do agree with others that simply building more roads is not the ideal. reducing the number of cars/journeys/heavy vehicles would be more cost effective if politically more difficult. Thanks B1M; great video as ever. .
Lived in Sydney 20 years ago , and use to walk it everywhere never had a car 😂
Acciona is also building one of the subway lines in São Paulo. You should talk about this.
Thank you for this video. I was involved in the assessment of the environmental impacts of this project and appreciate your content! 😊
Nimby’s are troublesome for most projects. The point about endless toll roads is a good point. They are obsessed with them in this country.
No tollways in Perth (no pokies either).
The alternative is urban freeways, which become utterly traffic clogged themselves in addition to compounding traffic at entries & exits - and taxpayers foot the entire bill. Complete waste of money to build a toll-free urban expressway. It’s a highway to a ruined city and congestion damnation.
I love living in Adelaide, sure we may be behind the rest of the country but no toll roads, no traffic jams (atleast for me) and less rat race. I bet this project will not be cheaper than originally budgeted for, we just dont do that in Australia, everything finishes over budget and over time.
Sounds like heaven, Sydney tolls are atrocious
Almost goes under my house, exciting times but it will be over a decade of construction counting the rest of the west link. It is necessary and a positive that major works are still being done.
I personally think what is needed to reduce traffic is an underground rail network from Palm beach on the north shore thru to the Sydney network with possibly a train and car tunnel under the Hawkesbury River linking Gosford.
GREAT VIDEO! VERY INTERESTED! KEEP IT UP! THANK YOU FOR CONSISTENTLY PUTTING OUT TOP QUALITY CONTENT ❤️👍 What is life without money? I think that's irrelevant. When you live, always try to invest for future times like this to ensure profits and growth. So you are not dependent on the government. Investing in the financial market should now be on every savvy individual's bucket list.
Investing is the key to maintaining your financial longevity. And not just an investment, but an investment with guaranteed returns.
@Jerv Carter Investing in the financial markets works for me even if I don't do it alone. I have an expert helping me and his strategies have helped me avoid losses and increase my income.
Hello@@jeanekarussell2195, that sounds interesting. What is the best way to reach your expert?
He is active on TELEGRAM 👇
CONSULTTIMTAYLOR ✅
Guys! They've done it! They're gonna fix traffic by building more roads! Why hasn't anyone else done this!?
And metros. They forgot to mention that in the video.
Great video. Thanks. Interesting to note that when the harbour tunnel was being constructed pretty much no one complained. In fact the people of Sydney hailed it a God send. Fast forward 25/30 years and everyone seems to be complaining, be it wrong or right. I think it is MUCH needed (although not the road toll). Maybe it's a sign of the time that anyone who feels like it will complain, and we all have a platform to do so.... cheers.
Great Video! Thats a really interesting turn of events. However, at 5:40 you say, that they use a Mixshield-TBM. The explanation was right but a bit missleading. In this type of mixshield the supporting pressure for the heading face is crated by a bentonit suspension. The air cushion is just there to regulate the pressure because it takes less time and energy to change air pressure rather than liquid pressure.
This is my daily commute and how good it is to see this project featured on my favorite KZhead channel by my man with the biggest guns in construction! 💪🏼 Let’s hope it reduces the congestion on the bridge and western distributor as it says it will. Love the video, and love Sydney!
Thanks for doing my home town. This problem could have been sorted out in the 1950s with a expressway project that never happened. Sydney needs more reliable public transport that arrives more often!
As a tourist regular visitor to Sydney it has much better public transport than a lot of major cities here in the UK
You need to travel overseas more (and not hire a car!), then you would realise that Sydney's public transit does a bloody good job compared with many, many other cities.
sydney has amazing public transport. ive lived here for 13 years now and never had a drivers licence. it isnt without flaws, but i can get from a to b purely on public transport without any issues at least until im heading to the outskirts where any city will have problems due to supply vs demand.
I live an hour north of Sydney and it's always a pain to get into the city. But there is a plan for a 30 minute train to get into the CBD. Currently it takes nearly 2 hours by train
It should be mentioned that even before we got to this stage we took several wrong turns. One of those was planners feeling the need to connect all of this to North Sydney and thus the Warringah Expressway (which will become an even bigger monster - its a nightmare now). There was a need for a decent connection between the M4 and M2, but this whole scheme was born of subsequent generations of road planners feeling the need to put motorways through the CBD and through North Sydney. Not to mention that part of this scheme is/was to create even more underground motorway leading to the North Shore, despite the alternatives - including a metro - being better value for money. That also explains the needless linkage into the Warringah Freeway. I'm not saying that we shouldn't have built a tunnel, but it should have been further west and bypassed North Sydney entirely. There is one light at the end of the tunnel though. This might provide the alternate path needed to make it feasible to demolish the "Western Distributor" - another road scheme from Hell cooked up by road planners last century that divorces the CBD from Darling Harbour.
for people going "oh Sydney traffic seems exaggerated" - it once took me SEVEN HOURS to drive the 90 minute drive home from North Sydney due to an accident in the harbour tunnel.
catch the train boofhead
I was lucky enough to live in Manly so got the ferry to work every day which was great. Not so great in stormy weather though when they wouldn’t run and had to drive or get the bus 🙄🇦🇺
"Destruction project" - 2:02 haha Love the video and work as always.
Amazing video as always 👏
5:22 That company logo is Herrenknecht, a German based company producing TM machines across Australia. My step-dad is an engineer for the company and he is currently doing the Cross River Rail project in Brisbane, as well as this project in Sydney, and some tunnels in Melbourne.
Tell him to dig the tunnel faster. 3 years is a joke.
basically all digging machines across the world are from Herrenknecht. One of the last companies we can be proud on here in Germany. Still family owned, a chinese nightmare, haha.
@@GrimReaper-ly8zk That would be the Chinese, be half finished by now
@@wissenistmacht6685 Agree, it’s a successful company and yes the. Honest are probably worried about this company
@@GrimReaper-ly8zk Currently he’s not part of the project now but he was earlier
Thanks
"Down Under" 🎶 Got that reference
Where I live we have two underwater tunnels and one underground connecting Norfolk and Newport News Virginia to allow the military ships in sea containers. One accident thete although rare leads to a 15 mile backup
In Australia they'll put a tollbooth on the garden path if given half a chance. If you want to avoid $20 just to go a few klicks you end up herding lemming-like through people's suburban streets because the toll roads are put on top of the older arterial roads, leaving you no choice but use them and pay through the nose or drive the locals insane.
I liked the comparison between the giant TBMs for highway traffic to the tiny TBMs for the metro. The trains seem a lot more efficient.
We used tubes and tbm’s in two recent mega projects in Boston. The tubes were less expensive, and faster. The tbm’s did their job - but did cause structural damage on existing homes and commercial buildings. At least one tbm got stuck and was abandoned $$$$
As a viewer from Sydney, I can say I am very glad they changed to a TBM because a local park near my home was going to become a harbourside worksite for years. (Berry's bay)
Yes, can't make a mess of the North Shore, yet look at the mess along the metro south of the Bridge, or at St Mary's for the metro to NBW.
yes, just worry about your little park and not millions of others that the worksite could help
Although I agree that traffic can be bad in Sydney, I don't think it stands out from other cities. Definitely improvements need to happen which should include public transport but I have to hand it to this state government for cracking on with major infrastructure projects. I've not seen so many major projects underway in my lifetime. From the new international airport to Metro lines across the city, the new Metro harbour tunnel, linking the motorways in a network of underground passageways across the city. Just today it was announced that the new M4/M8 Link will open tomorrow ahead of time and on budget. I'm not waving the flag for this government because I can point to many criticisms but credit where credit is due. This is not meant to encourage more road traffic, just fix the problems of existing systems that have been outgrown. The first part of this project is about to come to fruition and is an amazing feat of engineering and planning. I have been watching the updates with great anticipation. I am a huge fan of your videos. They are professional and use great resources and explanations to appeal to a lot of different people. We must bear in mind though, that it is one perspective. I, for one, think this project is very important and well thought out. The location makes sense and this change in methods is obviously an improvement. I'm curious to know how many tunnel boring machines are being used in Sydney at one time because there are a LOT of tunnels being bored across Sydney right now. Yes, there are a lot of tolls but how else are they going to pay for this convenience? A raffle?
Thank you for your explanation and diagrams showing how they are building the tunnel, I have lived and travelled the world and Sydney’s traffic while congested it’s far from the nightmare of many other countries… The public transport (buses, trains, trams and etc) are some of the best in the world… especially when it comes to peak hours and right through the week in and out of the city… one of the reasons it makes it more efficient is the fact the drivers don’t have to mess around with currency… Everyone has a prepaid card (Opal) all the passengers have to do is tap when they get on and tap when they get off… The residents are always going to complain regardless I don’t really blame them as it’s a nuisance but it’s also progress… It’s like Luna Park at Milsons Point the residents in the area have petitioned and closed it down so many times because of noise, Luna park has been there since the 1930’s but the resident’s knowing this move into the area then complain… it’s always going to happen regardless people don’t like it when it’s an inconvenience to them… though the NSW government should be planning ahead of time not when it becomes a problem and that’s always going to be the case unfortunately…
Auckland is also supposedly getting an underwater highway tunnel, which would run along side the current harbor bridge. Though that project won't start until atleast 2029.
7:00 - My small town suffer from a similar problem. A 20 km bike path will take longer to complete than first planned - with a 2028 finish instead of 2025-2026. With stage 2 work not beginning until late 2025, following more consultation with local communities.
simple state of modern infastructure, very rarely on time or under budget. Crossrail and HS2 are the current poster children for that issue here in the UK, though having gone on Crossrail... it does not deserve any hate.
Perfect. This is going to be another excellent $5BN lesson in induced car traffic.
Yeah, they really should have made the harbour bridge one lane. Actually no. No lanes, just a bike track.
@@zyeborm i think I just came
You know that saying "induced demand" doesn't actually make you smart?
@@Secretlyanothername I know, right? The correct term is "induced traffic".
@@synura8086 Induced Dunning-Kruger.
Could probably also build 3 more bridges in that area as well
On the plus, it seems like a good addition to the road network, and provides an important link as mentioned. But this can be a minus too, because many more cars are going to bed put on the road at either end because of the new trips that are possible. It might reduce bottlenecks at the other mentioned links, but it's not going to make traffic at either end any better, if anything it'll make it worse. I hope the tolls are high enough to discourage non-essential journeys. (Commuters in Sydney who require toll roads are eligible for partial subsidies.)
For those saying that this is useless and that more public transport is needed, they are building another harbour tunnel for Sydney Metro Rail project which is due to open next year...
it's still public money that has to come from somewhere that could be used to build better value infrastructure. Still, this tunnel won't fix the problems it sought to overcome. A metro line has scalable capacity and can serve a much larger area, unlike a motorway. Sydney Metro NW is 36 km long, mostly underground and cost only slightly more than the projected cost of the western harbour tunnel which is about 6km long. This tunnel guaranteed will have massive cost blow outs.
Yes, these people talk like it is an either/or situation. We need both car and public transport. And considering the government is investing 63 billion into one of the largest metro rail projects in the world, we cannot say that Sydney's public transport needs are being ignored for the sake of another harbor tunnel.
@@artistjoh 63 Billion for the metro? Im pretty sure it's MUCH less, mabye 10 billion at most.
@@artistjoh there are enough roads there, people will still be able to drive. It's much more efficient to spend the money for more public transport (for example a second North-south metro further West) than to build more roads. Drivers would also benefit, because the number of cars on the road would be reduced
@@nicolasblume1046 it's not far off from AUD 50+bn if you include Sydney Metro North West, CBD, South West, West and Western Sydney airport whcuh are under construction right now. This number doesn't include amounts spent on light rail or additional extensions which are in planning phase still.
I’m a Sydneysider; I suppose traffic isn’t great but I wouldn’t call it bad by world standards like this video makes it out to be. Having said that, better public transport would certainly help.
Mate you have the worst traffic in aus
We do have some of the longest commutes in the world. Wifey was going an hour 20 minutes each way to the CBD by train.
Agree, people complaining about sydney traffic simply have no idea how bad it really could be...
It's bad. Don't make your city out to be better than it is.
it's not bad... If you compare with Jakarta or Dhaka for sure
They did it in Singapore. I worked with a team of engineers from different disciplines and architects. We design five stations and 12 k of two Tunnel Boring Machines.
Fred Mills! You're a hero! We love you!
A very interesting and entertaining video again thanks to The B1M for your time and efforts. That's Australia for you doing infrastructure in the worst way possible just look up our version of high speed internet. Cheers.