Western Harbour Tunnel Stage 1
Reducing Sydney’s travel times with its third harbour crossing.
The Western Harbour Tunnel project will see a third crossing built across Sydney Harbour. The most famous is the Sydney Harbour Bridge built in 1932, still the world’s tallest steel arch bridge. The second crossing, the Sydney Harbour Tunnel was completed sixty years later and provided additional links between Sydney’s CBD and the North Shore.
The Western Harbour Tunnel will connect WestConnex at the Rozelle Interchange with the Warringah Freeway at North Sydney, which will be upgraded to connect with the planned Beaches Link tunnel and the Gore Hill Freeway Connection. Once complete, the new tunnel would provide a western bypass of the CBD and is estimated to cut traffic by 35% in the Western Distributor, and by up to 20% for the Sydney Harbour Tunnel and the Harbour Bridge.
The APP Group delivered transaction advisory and management services for the Main Works Packages. This included developing plans and processes for the transactions, managing related documentation and providing strategic advice to achieve the overall project objectives. In addition, The APP Group and partner SMEC were appointed as Independent Certifier for Stage 1.
Delivered in two stages, Stage 1 of the Western Harbour Tunnel includes the construction of 1.7km of twin three-lane tunnels between Rozelle and Birchgrove. Stage 2 will cover tunnelling at Birchgrove through and under Sydney Harbour to North Sydney. The Western Harbour Tunnel is expected to open in 2028.
In 2022, the original plans for the Western Harbour Tunnel were updated to shift away from being an immersed tube tunnel on top of the seabed to an underground tunnel with the use of Tunnel Boring Machines as part of Stage 2. The APP Group and SMEC were appointed as Independent Certifier for the first and second stages through different principal contractors.
