The Cahill Expressway is an urban

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

in Sydney and was the first freeway constructed in Australia, opening to traffic in 1958. It starts from the

Eastern Distributor The Eastern Distributor is a motorway in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Part of the M1, the motorway links the Sydney central business district with Sydney Airport. The centre-piece is a tunnel running from Woolloomooloo to Surry Hi ...

and Cross City Tunnel in Woolloomooloo, and runs through a series of sunken cuttings and tunnels between the Royal Botanic Garden and The Domain. One of the tunnels is the Domain Tunnel, located underneath the Royal Botanic Garden. The freeway then runs on an elevated section across the northern edge of the Sydney CBD at

Circular Quay Circular Quay is a harbour, former working port and now international passenger shipping port, public piazza and tourism precinct, heritage area, and transport node located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia on the northern edge of the ...

, and then across the

Sydney Harbour Bridge The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge in Sydney, spanning Sydney Harbour from the central business district (CBD) to the North Shore. The view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is widely regarded ...

to North Sydney. It connects there to the Warringah Freeway. It is named after the then

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Premier

John Joseph Cahill John Joseph Cahill (21 January 189122 October 1959), also known as Joe Cahill or J. J. Cahill, was a long-serving New South Wales politician, railway worker, trade unionist and Australian Labor Party (New South Wales Branch), Labor Party Premie ...

, who also approved construction of the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century archit ...

History

The expressway was first proposed in 1945 as part of an overall expressway plan for Sydney. Public opposition began when the proposal was first made public in 1948, with the Quay Planning Protest Committee being formed. Despite the opposition, construction on the elevated section of the expressway went ahead in 1955. Funding was provided by the Sydney Council and the NSW Government, and the elevated section was opened on 24 March 1958. Work on the sunken section commenced almost straight away after that, and the additional section was opened on 1 March 1962. As part of the

works in the late 1990s, a landscaped canopy was built over the southern end of Cahill Expressway (where it meets the Eastern Distributor) near the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In June 2013, the Expressway was temporarily renamed the ''Tim Cahill Expressway'' in honour of Socceroo Tim Cahill, ahead of the Socceroos' 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification match against

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

. Since 2022, Ventia operates the Domain Tunnel on behalf of Transport for NSW.

Role

The expressway forms a link between Sydney's eastern and northern suburbs, by connecting the

to the

and Sydney Harbour Tunnel. It allows travel directly from the airport to the northern suburbs without traffic signals. The traffic on the elevated section was reduced by half following the opening of the Sydney Harbour tunnel in 1992. The elevated section is a double deck, with the top deck carrying cars, and the lower deck railway lines and Circular Quay railway station. The station provides easy access to the

and the Royal Botanical Gardens. The westbound lanes dip underneath the Harbour Bridge approach road, before forming a large

spiral In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point. Helices Two major definitions of "spiral" in the American Heritage Dictionary are:Fort Street Public School to join to the Bridge in a confined space. The expressway has a pedestrian walkway next to the traffic lanes, where great views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the CBD can be seen. It is accessible by stairs from Macquarie St, or an elevator near Circular Quay railway station. The walkway connects with the Sydney Harbour Bridge walkway. The Roads & Traffic Authority offers tickets to view the New Year's Eve fireworks from the Cahill Expressway deck through a competition. Cahill Expressway from East

Former ''

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'' writer Elizabeth Farrelly described the freeway as 'doggedly symmetrical, profoundly deadpan, severing the city from the water on a permanent basis'. The sunken section of the expressway runs between the Royal Botanical Gardens and The Domain, key green spaces in Sydney. The Botanic Gardens Trust described the expressway as destroying the spatial relationship between the two. Demolition of the expressway has been proposed in the past, most prominently by former Australian

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...

Paul Keating Paul John Keating (born 18 January 1944) is an Australian former politician and unionist who served as the 24th prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He previously ser ...

, who in 1994 offered federal funds in the amount of A$150 million toward such a project. The then NSW Premier, John Fahey, rejected the proposal because of the cost and the resultant traffic problems.

Jeffrey Smart painting

One of Australian artist

Jeffrey Smart Frank Jeffrey Edson Smart (26 July 1921 – 20 June 2013) was an expatriate Australian painter known for his precisionist depictions of urban landscapes that are "full of private jokes and playful allusions". Smart was born and educated i ...

's most famous works is '' Cahill Expressway'' (1962). The painting shows a stylised view of the Cahill Expressway tunnel and approach road, with a single man shown at the side of the image. The painting shows the alienation many feel when faced with the infrastructure of large freeways, especially when closely juxtaposed with pedestrian scale areas.

Exits and interchanges

References

External links