Sydney Orbital Network

The Sydney orbital network.

The Sydney Orbital Network is a 110 kilometre motorway standard ring-road or orbital around the city of Sydney, the capital of New South Wales in Australia. Planning for this beltway, orbital or ring road began as early as 1962 under the "county of cumberland scheme" (CCS) and well talked about as far back as 1944. Then from 1973 to 1989 things started to take shape with new sections opening-up and then further advancing by 1999. In 2007, the Lane Cove Tunnel opened, completing the orbital network. It runs north from Sydney Airport, underneath the CBD to the North Shore, west to the Hills District, south to Prestons and then east to connect with the airport. Much of the road is privately-owned and financed by tolls.

Motorways that make up the orbital road

The 110 km Sydney orbital consists of several motorways and freeways, they are listed below:

• Eastern Distributor
• Southern Cross Drive
• General Holmes Drive
• M5 Motorway East
• M5 South Western Motorway
• Westlink M7
• M2 Hills Motorway
• Lane Cove Tunnel
• Gore Hill Freeway
• Warringah Freeway
• Sydney Harbour Tunnel (or Sydney Harbour Bridge and Cahill Expressway)

The major sunken/underground sections of the orbital are:

• Sydney Harbour Tunnel
• Eastern Distributor
• M5 East tunnel
• Epping Tunnel (M2 Hills Motorway, although not really a major tunnel)
• Sunken Section of the M2 Hills Motorway (The trench between Epping Road)
• Lane Cove Tunnel

The major elevated sections are:

• Parts of the Westlink M7
• Parts of Southern Cross and General Holmes Drive (past the airport)

The widest part of the orbital is the Warringah Freeway approach to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the longest tunnel is the M5 East tunnel, and the largest interchange is the Light Horse Interchange between the M4 and M7. It would cost over $30AU to take the whole orbital without exiting once. The average width of the Orbital is 2 lanes (most of the M5, M7, Lane Cove tunnel and M2 is two lanes).

Tolling

The Sydney Orbital Road Network consists of a number of roads built by private companies: tolling is unavoidable when using the road network.

Road	Direction	Toll Collection Method	Toll Pricing	Price	Operator
Eastern Distributor	Northbound	Electronic / Cash	Flat rate	$5.00	Airport Motorways
M5 South Western Motorway	Both	Electronic / Cash	Flat rate	$4.40	Interlink Roads
Westlink M7	Both	Electronic	Distance based	$0.3197/km, $6.48 Cap	Transurban
M2 Hills Motorway	Both	Electronic / Cash	Flat rate	$4.95	Transurban
Lane Cove Tunnel	Both	Electronic	Flat rate	$2.72	Connector Motorways
Sydney Harbour Bridge	Southbound	Electronic	Time based	Weekdays $3.00 (9.30am - 4pm) $4 (6.30am - 9.30am, 4pm - 7pm) $2.50 (7pm - 6.30am); Weekends $3 (8am - 8pm) $2 (8pm - 8am)	RTA
Sydney Harbour Tunnel	Southbound	Electronic	Time based	Weekdays $3.00 (9.30am - 4pm) $4 (6.30am - 9.30am, 4pm - 7pm) $2.50 (7pm - 6.30am); Weekends $3 (8am - 8pm) $2 (8pm - 8am)	RTA

Highway links

Intercity highways are linked to the Orbital, moving traffic away from the old busy National Routes. They are:

• Pennant Hills Rd - linking Sydney-Newcastle Freeway to M2 Motorway
• M4 Motorway - linking Great Western Highway to Westlink M7
• M5 Motorway - linking Hume Highway to General Holmes Drive
• King Georges Rd - linking M5 Motorway to Princes Highway, Southern Freeway and Wollongong

Proposed or missing freeway/motorway links

• Link to the F3 Sydney-Newcastle Freeway – The final stage of a motorway standard Sydney Bypass, a tunnel under Pennant Hills Road is in the planning stages.
• Link to the F6 Southern Freeway – At present, there are no plans to complete this link as freeway standard. The only section which was built is the Captain Cook Bridge and its approaches. Land is still reserved north of this point through Sandringham, and south through the Royal National Park. This still leaves a considerable length of the corridor built out, which will require great expense to resume, or tunnel beneath.
• Marrickville Tunnel – Proposal to link the orbital ring road at Port Botany with the M4 Motorway, to remove commercial traffic from inner west surface roads.
• M4 East – Extension of the M4 Motorway to the Anzac Bridge. This proposal has been reviewed and cancelled following stiff community opposition, which cited encouraging additional commuter traffic into the CBD, whilst removing little commercial traffic from the area.

External links

• RTA Orbital Network Website
• NSW Bike Plan - Bicycle Information for New South Wales