The " Tunnelling " Solution !

At long last that dangerous stretch of road connecting North Wollongong and Stanwell Park is getting a serious evaluation with the view of an upgrade.   Lawrence Hargreave Drive is virtually a single lane each way through a densely populated combination of seaside suburbs, sandwiched between the towering escarpment and the sea.

It is notorious for long delays even in off peak conditions and should a sudden storm eventuate on a sunny weekend the traffic jam can take hours to clear.  In such circumstances, ambulances and fire trucks face an impossible situation responding to calls.

Numerous seaside villages from the early settlement of the coast have joined up to make a continuous  suburb of the narrow land frontage on either side of this road, and between that and the escarpment it is thickly wooded.   The potential for a raging bushfire is evident every summer and with the right wind behind it this could eventuate into a tragedy.

We were extremely lucky it did not burn in the disastrous summer of last year and the last time the escarpment had a fire season was 1968.  It is long overdue and our luck will not hold indefinitely. But exactly what form of relief that can be applied is difficult to imagine.

Lawrence Hargreave drive originated in the horse and cart days. It twists and turns its way of necessity and follows the contour of the land and substantial widening will be impossible.  Virtually every space fronting it now contains a house, and in this day and age each of those homes has at least one car.

Unfortunately, accessing Wollongong and the south coast is by way of the dangerous descent of either Mount Ousley or Bulli Pass and many people use Lawrence Hargreave drive as an alternative.  We will only reduce the heavy load on this road when we can offer a faster and easier way to avoid the obstacle of the escarpment.

The answer to that problem is obvious.  Road and rail tunnels through the escarpment to link north Wollongong with Maddens plains.  We have the divided F6 highway linking Sydney with Bulli Tops and taking it underground to avoid a slow grinds down the escarpment is the logical sequence.

Giant boring machines are creating tunnels that provide a better highway system in Sydney and when this is complete they should be tasked with freeing up access to the south coast.  Just eighty kilometres separates Wollongong from Sydney and both the road and rail journey is unusually long because of the time taken to twist and turn over the escarpment.  A journey under the escarpment would remove that hazard as the most economical alternative.

The only real alternative to Lawrence Hargreave drive will be to close it to through traffic.  If it is restricted to local traffic movement it will barely cope but that would be a big improvement on the situation that presently exists.

That tunnelling answer seems the only solution  and its needs implementation while the machines are readily available.