M2 Hills Motorway

M2 Hills Motorway
Route information
Maintained by Transurban Limited, Hills Motorway Limited
Length:	21 km (13 mi)
Existed:	1993 – present
History:	Completed on 26 May 1997
Major junctions
East end:	Lane Cove Tunnel, North Ryde, Sydney
	Lane Cove Road Cumberland Highway
West end:	WestLink, Seven Hills, Sydney
Location
Primary destinations:	Epping, Beecroft, Carlingford, Baulkham Hills
Highway system
Highways in Australia National Highway • Freeways in Australia

The M2 Hills Motorway (also known as the Hills M2 Motorway, M2 Motorway or simply M2) is a motorway in north-western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It forms part of Sydney Metroad 2 and the 110 km Sydney Orbital Network. West of Pennant Hills Road, the M2 is also part of the National Highway.

History

Previously, Sydney's western suburbs were poorly served. Traffic passed through Parramatta and to the city centre via Victoria Road and Western Freeway. Although Parramatta was completely bypassed in the 1986, peak hour traffic still clogs up Victoria Road and all western approaches to Sydney.

The M2 Hills Motorway was developed to connect Old Windsor Road, Seven Hills to Epping Road, North Ryde, and thus bypass the busy inner western suburbs. In turn, Epping Road connects with Gore Hill Freeway at Artarmon which leads to the Harbour Bridge and the CBD.

Historically, however, the M2 Motorway was known as the F2 Freeway (or North West Freeway) before its construction. As part of the integrated freeway plans drawn up for Sydney in 1942, the F2 was originally planned to link to the Gladesville Bridge and then on to Anzac Bridge via a new set of elevated freeways behind Drummoyne, the land for which was sold by the Wran Labor Government in 1988. This explains the freeway-style grade of road from Gladesville Bridge to Hunters Hill, and the green belt north up to the seemingly arbitrary city-end of the M2 (The Gore Hill Freeway and Lane Cove Tunnel were not parts of this original plan, and the "F1" Warringah Freeway was designed to be a link to the Northern Beaches, via Roseville Bridge, and not to the Hills district). Evidence of the F2's original alignment can be found on old street directories, where the Western Distributor (which connects Anzac Bridge to the city) is labelled 'North-West Freeway'.

The intersection of Epping and Pittwater Road was once destined to be a major junction of part of "Sydney's Missing Roads" until the cancellation of the North Western Expressway and Lane Cove Valley Expressway in 1977.[1]

A Commission of Inquiry for Environment and Planning in July 1990, chaired by John Woodward, recommended the proposed Expressway known as the F2 Stage 1 between Pennant Hills Rd, Beecroft, and Epping Road at Ryde should not be constructed. Subsequently, the NSW Government conducted an environmental impact assessment on the options available, and in May 1993 announced a Build Own Operate Transfer for the road. The M2 Hills Motorway is a privately funded capital works. The NSW Government entered into an agreement with Hills Motorway Limited to build, own, operate and, ultimately, transfer the M2 back to the Government at the end of a 45 year term.

The M2 Hills Motorway pioneered the use of electronic tolling in Australia^{[citation needed]} when it opened on 26 May 1997. In April 2007, Transurban announced that from 1 December 2007 the M2 Hills motorway will be fully cashless with no toll booths.. It wasn't until 30 January 2012 that the M2 became fully cashless.

In April 2007, a third traffic lane heading westbound became operational between the Lane Cove Road and Beecroft Road interchanges by utilising the existing cycling/breakdown lane and lane remarking works. There has been criticisms from cyclists who are forced to cycle via alternative routes as a result of the loss of the lane, and from motorists who have said that the addition of a third lane will induce more traffic and shift the bottleneck further down the motorway as a result of assisting and maintaining free-flowing traffic from the Lane Cove Tunnel, which is now directly connected with the M2 motorway. A speed camera enforcing the 70km/h limit was also introduced on the westbound carriageway just before the Epping/Norfolk Road tunnel.

The Lane Cove Tunnel which opened on Sunday 25 March 2007, which links-up to the M2 at Lane Cove and carries about 50,000 vehicles per day on the Sydney Orbital Network also the Westlink M7, which opened on 16 December 2005 links the M2 Hills Motorway (at Seven Hills) to the M5 South Western Motorway at Prestons.

Route

The M2 Hills Motorway connects directly with the Lane Cove Tunnel at the Lane Cove River in North Ryde and heads North West through Macquarie Park to Epping, then West through Beecroft, Carlingford then South West through Baulkham Hills and Winston Hills onto the Westlink M7 motorway at Seven Hills.

Exits and Interchanges

Hills Motorway
Westbound exits	Distance to Windsor (km)	Distance to Sydney (km)	Eastbound exits
End Hills Motorway continues as WestLink to Lithgow / Canberra	24	32	Start Hills Motorway from WestLink
Rouse Hill, Windsor Old Windsor Road
Parramatta, Baulkham Hills Windsor Road	27	29	no exit
Start duplexes with	32	24	Hornsby, To via Newcastle, Brisbane; Parramatta, Liverpool, Carlingford, Epping, Castle Hill Pennant Hills Road (Cumberland Highway)
Castle Hill, Hornsby Pennant Hills Road (Cumberland Highway)			continues as
Epping, Beecroft Beecroft Road	34	22	no exit
TUNNEL	35	21	TUNNEL
TOLL PLAZA	38	18	TOLL PLAZA
no exit	39	17	Macquarie Park Christie Road
no exit	40	16	Pymble, Ryde Lane Cove Road
no exit	41	15	Chatswood, Ryde Delhi Road
Ryde, Epping Epping Road	42	14	no exit
Start Hills Motorway continues from Lane Cove Tunnel			End Hills Motorway continues as Lane Cove Tunnel to Sydney

Future

A freeway standard Sydney Bypass has been intended as part of the National Highway system for decades. It is now planned that a new tunnelled route will be built to connect from the M2 Motorway near the Pennant Hills Road interchange to the Sydney-Newcastle Freeway (also known as the F3) north of Pearce's Corner, Wahroonga.

A report commissioned by Ryde Council has identified the lack of direct access to and from the M2 at Macquarie Park, and the potential to provide additional on and off-ramps at various intersections with the M2 to improve traffic access and relieve congestion. Most notably, the report identifies the opportunity of negotiation with Transurban and the RTA for construction of the missing east facing ramps at the Lane Cove Road intersection. The proposed east-bound on-ramp at the Lane Cove Road intersection would allow city-bound traffic from the Pymble area to avoid heavy congestion and the complicated movement of joining Epping Road and merging across four-lanes of traffic to enter the Lane Cove Tunnel. The "need for east-facing M2 ramps at Lane Cove Road intersection" was raised in the 2002 Director General's report on the then proposed Lane Cove Tunnel. The RTA did not respond to requests from Ryde City Council for the ramps to be added as part of the Lane Cove Tunnel Project.

Toll payments

Tolls are charged on the basis of vehicles being either Class 2 (which includes most private vehicles) or Class 4 (vehicles with two axles and are over 2.8 metres high, or vehicles with three axles which are over 2 metres high, or vehicles with more than three axles). Transurban has announced that the M2 Hills motorway will become fully electronic with no cash booths from December 2007 to assist with free-flowing traffic to and from adjacent fully electronic toll roads, such as the; Cross City Tunnel, Westlink M7, Lane Cove Tunnel and the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, with the end result being a non stop journey at minimum speeds of 70 km/h from the beginning of M7 right through to the Sydney Harbour Tunnel.

The M2 supports the following toll methods (from April 2007):

• Cash payment (manual or automatic)
• Electronic tolling, otherwise known as an E-Tag. At the main toll plaza at Macquarie Park, there are two dedicated express tolling lanes in each direction via a toll gantry.

The toll for the full journey for class 2 vehicles increased by 60 cents from $3.80 to $4.40 on 1 October 2006.

A toll increase for cars and motorbikes (class 2 vehicles) and trucks (class 4 vehicles) on the M2 will take effect from 12am 1 July 2009.

The toll for cars and motorbikes passing through the main toll plaza at North Ryde will change from $4.40 to $4.95. The toll for cars and motorbikes using the Pennant Hills Road toll plaza will not change.

Full electronic tolling

In April 2007, Transurban announced they intended to migrate the M2 Hills Motorway to a cashless tolling system from December of the same year. The M2 was to become fully electronic with no cash booths. Cashless tolling is now scheduled to start from the 31st January 2012.

See also

• Freeways in Australia
• Freeways in Sydney
• Metroad 2

External links

• The Hills Motorway
• Web Cam (M2-Ryde)
• F3 to Sydney Orbital route study
• RTA Hills M2 Motorway