Tunnelling begins on WestConnex's $3.8b M4 East
Tunnelling has begun on the long-awaited $3.8b M4 East, part of stage one of Sydney's $16.8b WestConnex project. M4 East is being delivered by a Joint Venture between Leighton Contractors, John Holland and Samsung C&T.
The 7km project requires ten construction sites in total, including four main tunnelling sites - Cintra Park, Concord; Concord Road, Concord; Northcote Street, Haberfield; Underwood Road, Homebush.
Eighteen road headers will be working underground in both directions to create two 5.5.km tunnels that will extend the M4 motorway by linking Homebush with Haberfield. Tunneling will be carried out 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The mammoth M4 East project is set to create 10,000 jobs during construction and is due for completion by 2019.
The widened and extended M4 will allow motorists to travel between Haberfield and the Blue Mountains without stopping at any traffic lights.
Artist impression of M4 East twin tunnels under Paramatta Road. Source: ABC News
The tunnels will be among the widest in the southern hemisphere and will allow motorists to bypass the bottleneck where the M4 motorway meets Parramatta Road.
A number of homes were acquired around Haberfield to make way for this part of WestConnex, making it unpopular with many in the local community.
In an effort to reduce the residential impact, the Governmentare will rehabilitate and landscape the majority of Cintra Park and return it to the City of Canada Bay for community use when construction finishes in 2019. Some facilities to support the operation of the motorway will remain.
A new world-class hockey field with sports facilities opened in February 2016 at St Luke's Oval at Concord to replace the field previously at Cintra Park.
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