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There’s a whole lot happening in Sydney’s west. Over the next few years, we’ll say hello to a brand-new CBD (complete with NYC-style central park) and a new international airport in a previously relatively undeveloped corner of the city, 41 kilometres west of the CBD. And the first major connecting link to Sydney’s huge new hub is about to open. From the early hours of Saturday, March 14, Sydney motorists will be able to drive along the brand-new M12 Motorway, a 16-kilometre toll-free stretch of road that will serve as the main gateway to the new Western Sydney International Airport (Nancy-Bird Walton).
Four years in the making, the state-of-the-art motorway connects Elizabeth Drive in the east to The Northern Road in the west, delivering an intersection-free run with a 100 kilometre per hour speed limit straight into the airport precinct. It’s expected to take around 25,000 vehicles off local roads every day – easing pressure on suburban streets and making travel across Western Sydney faster and more reliable.
According to the NSW Government, the M12 has been designed to integrate smoothly with Sydney’s wider road network, providing a critical link to the future Western Sydney Aerotropolis, a planned innovation and business hub set to generate thousands of jobs in the coming years.
While the main motorway will open this weekend, one final piece of the puzzle is still to come: the M7/M12 Interchange at Cecil Hills, which is expected to open mid-year and will provide a seamless motorway-to-motorway connection between the M12 and the M7 Motorway.
The scale of the project is pretty staggering. Construction involved more than 5.2 million hours of work and employed around 10,000 people, including almost 5,000 local workers. According to government data, crews poured the equivalent of 73 Olympic swimming pools worth of concrete, completed earthworks comparable to more than 1,000 Olympic pools, installed 461 bridge piles and built 17 bridges. Landscaping efforts also saw more than 1.5 million shrubs and grasses planted, along with 18,500 trees.
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With cargo and passenger flights expected to begin later this year at Western Sydney’s long-awaited second airport, the new motorway will effectively act as its “driveway” – making it far easier for travellers and workers to get in and out of the rapidly growing corner of the city.
And the best news for drivers? Unlike many of Sydney’s newer motorways, the M12 will be completely toll-free. You can find out more and map your journey over here.
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