Sydney’s Iron Cove Bridge and Inner Western Busway opened late January to a media blitz by NSW Premier Kristina Keneally, yet has been dogged by controversy over claims the new infrastructure is a ‘busway’ in name only.
The busway is in fact a ‘bus lane’ with road line markings, and stretches along a section of major arterial Victoria Road that connects inner north-west suburbs with Parramatta and Sydney’s CBD.
Victoria Road carries around 75,000 vehicles each day across Iron Cove and 35,000 passengers on 29 bus routes through Drummoyne and Rozelle.
All non-bus traffic along the route will be controlled and veered away from the bus-only lane through the use of a ‘Zipper’ machine that shifts concrete barriers to reduce or increase traffic flow.
Keneally opened the $175-million, 3.5-kilometres Inner Western Busway with NSW Roads Minister David Borger, both claiming to have delivered the project two months ahead of schedule.
“The Inner Western Busway has the potential to save inner west and western Sydney bus commuters up to an hour-and-a-half each week,” Keneally says.
She adds there are now 1,300 more services a week from inner-western Drummoyne to Sydney’s CBD than there were six months ago.
“This means that commuters from Drummoyne never need to wait more than five minutes for a bus in the morning peak.”
Borger says all users will see the benefits of the new bridge, bus lanes and Australia’s first ‘Zipper’ traffic management system.
He says the Zipper will operate on the Inner Western Busway to create a dedicated bus lane for morning peak-hour traffic.
The moveable barrier system costs $3.5 million, including about 1km of concrete median barriers.
“The Zipper literally shifts concrete barriers from one part of the road to another to create another city-bound lane that will be used by buses in the morning peak,” Borger says.
Borger says traffic along Victoria Road will be monitored closely during February as the busway is brought online.
Iron Cove Bridge, Inner Western Busway fast facts:
• The project includes a new 450m long and 16.6m wide bridge over Iron Cove, duplicating the existing Iron Cove Bridge
• Dedicated bus lanes in peak periods will give priority to public transport and improve the travel times along Victoria Road through Drummoyne and Rozelle
• The NSW Zipper is the only machine of its kind in the world with an added acoustic protection system
• The machine was manufactured in the USA and arrived in Australia in December
• The Zipper weighs more than four tonnes when transferring the barriers
• The concrete barriers weigh around 700kgeach
• The Zipper’s noise mitigation measures include acoustic lining to the full mid-section of the machine, exhaust baffles and additional sealing to all doors on the machine.