Rare wetlands at risk in plans for F6 Extension

The preferred alignment of the proposed F6 Extension goes through the Rockdale Wetlands and the Royal National Park a site with some of the "richest concentrations of plant species in temperate Australia".

The assessment, in a leaked Roads and Maritime Services report, also confirms that about 14 hectares of bushland, trees and wetlands will be cleared between Arncliffe and Loftus.

The first section of the $14.5 billion toll road, between WestConnex at Arncliffe and President Avenue, Brighton-Le-Sands, would be built primarily on land historically reserved for the freeway.

The "corridor of connecting natural and open space" forms part of the Rockdale Wetlands and Recreation Corridor.

"These areas provide foraging and roosting habitat for a range of migratory and non-migratory shorebirds and small bush birds. Wetlands include Eve Street, Marsh Street and Landing Lights wetlands which in combination form part of the only remaining migratory wading bird habitat on the western side of Botany Bay," the report says.

"Eve Street Wetland is listed on the Commonwealth government's directory of important wetlands in Australia. There are a number of environmental constraints within the wetland, protected under state and Commonwealth legislation."

The report warns the wetlands are "highly valued by the community".

Plans to build on them are "likely to be met with community opposition".

Parts of the Kogarah golf course will make way for a new M5 motorway operations complex.

The golf course provides key habitat areas for the Green and Golden Bell Frog, listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The report says plans are underway to creating a new "artificial Green and Golden Bell Frog habitat" as part of a biodiversity offset package.

The section between President Avenue and the Georges River includes a known habitat for the threatened plant species Magenta Lilly Pilly and important nursery and breeding areas for fish entering the wetlands corridor from Botany Bay.

The section that uses the Captain Cook Bridge will be upstream from an estuarine complex "comprising a mixture of spits, bars, mudflats, dunes and beaches".

The report says it is the largest wetland of its type in the Sydney Basin and includes vegetation types "now rare in the area".

The wetland system comprises 60 per cent of the remaining saltmarsh communities and 40 per cent of the remaining mangrove communities in Sydney and is an important area for migratory and native bird species.

The report says Roads and Maritime Services plans to expedite the project by getting it declared "critical state significant infrastructure" as were NorthConnex and WestConnex, ensuring local councils cannot frustrate the project and making it "entirely permissible without consent on land outside the Royal National Park".

Within the National Heritage-listed Royal National Park and adjacent Garawarra State Conservation Area, planners would need the approval of the Commonwealth government.

Asked whether the department acknowledged the risks identified in the report a spokesman for Roads and Maritime Services said the project was "in the early stages of planning with geotechnical investigations to help inform the future design, route and potential costs".

"As with any transport project of this scale, any future motorway proposal would be subject to a rigorous and comprehensive environmental assessment process, which would include detailed analysis of any potential impacts and extensive community consultation."

Design documents seen by Fairfax Media and the ABC specify the location of each of the six exhaust stacks and the preferred alignment, "immediately adjacent to and within the Royal National Park".

In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

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F6 Extension tolls revealed: $100 per week

The proposed F6 Extension toll road from Sydney to Wollongong would charge about $10 for each one-way journey, according to a leaked planning document seen by Fairfax Media and the ABC.

The return toll of around $20 would amount to $100 per week for people who commuted from Wollongong to Sydney five days a week.

The Cabinet in Confidence document says the tollway between St Peters and Waterfall would open in stages during 2024 and 2025 and would be tolled for 35 years during which the government or a private owner would reclaim the $14.5 billion it cost to build and the $3.5 billion it would cost to operate.

The toll would rise rapidly during that time, doubling from $10 to more than $20 over the first 20 years in line with a formula that lifts the toll by at least 4 per cent per year instead of the inflation rate of around 2.5 per cent. After 20 years the toll would rise with inflation.

The toll would be capped at around $8 in 2016 dollars, which would become $10 in 2024 dollars.

It would be made up of a toll of about $3.50 from St Peters to the corner of President Avenue and Kingsway road Miranda, about $3.75 from President Avenue to Taren Point, and $3.75 from Taren Point to Loftus. The section from Loftus to Waterfall would be untolled. Although the tolls would amount to $11, the total would be capped at slightly more than $8 in 2016 dollars ($10 in 2024 dollars) matching the $8 proposed for Westconnex and the $8 proposed for the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link.

It's also about the same as the present cost of a peak adult one-way train trip between Central and Wollongong; $8.50.

The combination means a tolled trip from Sydney's Northern Beaches to the South Coast would cost around $16 each way ($32 return) in 2016 dollars, and around around $20 each way ($40 return) by the time the F6 Extension opened.

Heavy vehicles would be charged three times as much as cars and light commercial vehicles.

Asked about the leaked financial appraisal report a spokesman for Roads and Maritime Services said the F6 Extension was "in the early stages of planning with geotechnical investigations to help inform the future design, route and potential costs".

No final decision about the design or funding had been made. The community would be kept informed as the project progressed, the spokesman said.

Other leaked documents seen by Fairfax Media indicate that the proposed motorway can only achieve the promised reductions in travel time if it goes through the Royal National Park or uses land obtained by acquiring and bulldozing 460 homes and 40 commercial properties between Loftus and Waterfall.

A Roads and Maritime engagement and communication plan seen by Fairfax Media says messaging on the national park will need "careful management".

A draft Q&A for fielding questions from the media says to reply that it is "too early to speculate" when asked about the potential cost or whether the F6 Extension will be tolled.

The leak comes 22 years to the month since the previous F6 toll was scrapped in 1995. It was $1, having climbed from 40¢ when the Waterfall tollgate was opened in 1975.

In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

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Schools, parks, homes in frame as smokestack sites revealed

The Wenona School in North Sydney, the Anzac Park Primary School in Cammeray and the Seaforth Public School are each within 200 metres of the sites chosen for smokestacks to release exhaust fumes from tunnels for the proposed Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link.

The proposed locations, in a cabinet in confidence document seen by Fairfax Media and the ABC, are on residential streets, parkland and the existing Warringah Freeway and Wakehurst Parkway.

The proposed toll road would tunnel from WestConnex at Rozelle to the Warringah Freeway at North Sydney, then tunnel under Middle Harbour to join the Wakehurst Parkway at Allambie Heights.

It is expected to deliver time savings of up to 40 minutes between Brookvale and the city, 45 minutes between Dee Why to the airport and 35 minutes between Seaforth and North Sydney.

The ventilation shafts, each between 20 and 35 metres high, would release fumes from the thousands of trucks and cars expected to travel underground. Each would be accompanied by ventilation plants of between 1500 and 2500 square metres.

The document identifies the key issues with the potential to hold up approval as: potential opposition to the compulsory acquisition of homes from "residents, council and elected representatives", community and/or environmental group opposition to the dredging, haulage and disposal of spoil "particularly if contamination is present", and potential community and council opposition to use of crown land including St Leonards Park, Yurulbin Park, Anzac Park and The Spit Reserve.

Each mapped location is marked with a 150 metre buffer for the "downwash" of pollutants, and a wider 500 metre "sensitivity buffer".

Homes, schools, childcare centres and hospitals identified as "sensitive receptors" are also marked. No location is identified for the Rozelle exhaust stack.

The proposed smokestack sites are:

• Ridge Street, North Sydney, near Wenona School and St Leonards Park
• Falcon Street, St Leonards, near Warringah Freeway
• Cammeray Golf Club, near Anzac Park Public School
• Artarmon Reserve, near Gore Hill
• Dudley Street, Balgowlah, near Seaforth Public School
• Wakehurst Parkway, near Judith Street, Seaforth

"It should be noted that where constraints are related to the close proximity to existing residential receptors, a major risk to the project will be the perceived air quality impacts from ventilation stack outlets, despite air quality outcomes potentially being achieved," the cabinet in confidence document says.

"This perceived impact has been experienced on a number of major motorway projects involving tunnels, including NorthConnex and WestConnex more recently."

It suggests the government consider the relocation of some of the proposed stacks "to adjacent park or bushland".

Dispersal near Wenona School is hindered by tall buildings. Background pollution means the stack may cause "cumulative air quality impacts".

A table in the document points to unsafe levels of the contaminants PM2.5 and PM10 at several of the sites. The microscopic particles have been declared carcinogens by the World Health Organisation.

The level of detail in the document indicates that, as with the proposed F6 Extension toll road in Sydney's south, the "base case" for the project is well advanced. Fairfax Media understands a rail alternative has not been considered.

It raises the prospect of three multi-billion dollar toll roads – WestConnex, the F6 Extension and Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link – undergoing construction at various stages and at about the same time.

Fairfax Media has already published details of the six locations chosen for the F6 Extension smokestacks, one of which is next to Port Hacking High School.

A spokesman for Roads Minister Melinda Pavey said the final alignment of the tunnels had not been determined. Therefore the location of exhaust outlets was yet to be determined.

"Geotechnical work is ongoing to determine the preferred route for the tunnel," the spokesman said. "The community has been and will continue to be informed at all stages."

The cabinet in confidence document recommends declaring the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link "critical state significant infrastructure" in order to bypass objections.

NorthConnex and WestConnex were declared critical state significant infrastructure.

The declaration would prevent appeals to the Land and Environment Court without the agreement of the planning minister and prevent the making of certain orders under the National Parks and Wildlife Act, the Threatened Species Conservation Act, Fisheries Management Act, Protection of the Environment Operations Act and the Local Government Act.

"Based on a preliminary consideration of the project, it is likely that a reasonable argument could be formulated to support the necessary view to be formed by the minister for planning that the project is essential to the State for economic, social or environmental reasons as a preceding step to declaration of the project as Critical State Significant Infrastructure," the report says.

In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

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Revealed: The $14 billion Beaches Link price tag

The proposed 14-kilometre tunnel tollway between Rozelle and Allambie Heights will cost $14 billion to build, almost as much as the 33-kilometre WestConnex project.

The enormous price tag, in a costing for cabinet seen by Fairfax Media, excludes an extra $8 billion that would be spent on operation and maintenance of the tunnel over the first 35 years.

The Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link tollway is expected to bypass up to 19 sets of traffic lights and cut the travel time between Brookvale and the CBD by 40 minutes. It will require the erection of six exhaust ventilation stacks for which sites have been identified, several within metres of schools.

The $14 billion price tag includes about $340 million for property acquisitions, $5 billion for the direct cost of construction, $2.3 billion for indirect costs and $5 billion for contingencies and cost escalation.

As many as 20 houses would need to be acquired and demolished to build the tunnel, as well as 30 multi-occupancy buildings and 20 commercial buildings, most of them near exhaust stacks.

The Wenona School in North Sydney, the Anzac Park Primary School in Cammeray and the Seaforth Public School are each within 200 metres of the sites chosen for smokestacks, as are schools not identified when the Herald identified the proposed locations on Monday.

The Crows Nest TAFE is within 500 metres of the proposed Ridge Street exhaust stack in North Sydney and in 2019 will become the senior campus of Cammeraygal High. Other schools within 500 metres of proposed smokestacks include Marist College North Shore, the North Sydney Boys High School, the Cameragal Montessori School, the KU Cammeray Pre-School, the Balgowlah Boys Campus of the Northern Beaches Secondary College and the KU Bligh Park Pre-School.

Each exhaust stack, up to 35 metres high would be accompanied by a ventilation plant of between 1500 and 2500 square metres.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said on Monday that locations for exhaust stacks "had not been finalised at all" as geotechnical and design work was still under way.

"It is way too early to make any predictions about where things are going to be," she said.

The costing document seen by Fairfax Media is titled "Final Business Case". A separate cabinet-in-confidence report includes three slightly different routes for the tollway, but only one set of locations for exhaust stacks.

Ms Berejiklian said her government had been "transparent at every level on every project because it's always in our interests to communicate as soon as we know something".

Opposition Leader Luke Foley said the government was treating the people of NSW with contempt. "Have they learnt nothing from WestConnex? Yet again, here is advanced planning for smokestacks, for a big mega-tunnel that will impact on hundreds of thousands of people and yet there's no consultation with the community."

The premier announced the Beaches Link before the March North Shore by-election. In March the government committed $77 million for geotechnical work along the route and in June a further $17.6 million for planning the route.

The previously undisclosed total of $14 billion compares with $16.8 billion for WestConnex (up from $10 billion when it was first announced) and $14.5 billion plus operational and maintenance costs for the proposed F6 Extension to the Illawarra region.

It raises questions about the capacity of the state budget to sustain all three road projects.

Asked whether $14 billion was the working price for building the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link a spokesman for roads minister Melinda Pavey said it was too early to determine a final price.

The Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link was going through a  process of review and market testing to provide the greatest benefit to the taxpayer.

Roads and public transport projects were not mutually exclusive.

The 36-kilometre Rouse Hill to Chatswood rail upgrade is much cheaper than the Beaches Link at $8 billion, around $230 million per kilometre.

An internal Transport for NSW memo released under the Government Information (Public Access) Act refers to a cabinet directive not to consider public transport alternatives when assessing tollway projects. The memo says the Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link was not benchmarked against a public transport alternative.

In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

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Revealed. $8 tolls each way in Sydney's north

Motorists will pay tolls in both directions on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Harbour Tunnel under proposals to help cover the $14 billion cost of a 14-kilometre tunnel linking the northern beaches to the city's inner west.

The plans for the new tolls, detailed in cabinet-in-confidence documents, also reveal that motorists will be slugged about $8 (in today's dollars) for a one-way journey by car on the entire length of the proposed Western Harbour Tunnel and Beaches Link.

The analysis assumes tolls will be in place for a 35-year period on the Western Harbour Tunnel from 2023, and the Beaches Link a year later. Charges for trucks will be three times greater than those for cars or light commercial vehicles.

Under the proposals contained in a "Final Business Case", $3 tolls for cars will be placed on northbound trips on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Harbour Tunnel from 2022 to make them the same as those on the proposed Western Harbour Tunnel.

The documents show the new tolls on the Harbour Bridge and Harbour Tunnel will help cross-subsidise the third harbour crossing and the Beaches Link, whose tolls will be insufficient to cover the full cost of building, maintaining and operating them.

Cabinet documents seen by Fairfax Media and the ABC have put the cost of the new tunnels at $14 billion, which compares with $16.8 billion for the 33km WestConnex motorway.

Transport authorities believe tolls are necessary to avoid free northbound trips on the Harbour Bridge and Harbour Tunnel undermining the case for a third crossing. A free alternative would discourage motorists from using a tolled Western Harbour Tunnel.

It has also been proposed that tolls will be placed on southbound journeys of the Eastern Distributor. They would be set at half the cost of the existing charge for a northbound journey of $7.02 – or about $3.50 each way.

The $8 toll for the entire length of the proposed roadway is made up of $3 for the new harbour tunnel between the WestConnex interchange at Rozelle and North Sydney, where it will join the Warringah Freeway, and $5 for the Beaches Link to Balgowlah in Sydney's north.

The tolls planned for the new tunnels will be fixed, unlike the distance-based tolls on WestConnex. While tolls on the Western Harbour Tunnel will rise in line with the consumer price index, those on the Beaches Link will increase every year for the first two decades by 4 per cent or at the rate of inflation, whichever is greater.

In an era of low wage growth, the likelihood of tolls rising at a faster rate than inflation means a greater proportion of Sydney motorists' income will go towards paying charges for using motorways.

The NSW government has been opposed to limiting toll increases on Sydney's growing labyrinth of motorways to the rate of inflation because it believes it could push up the initial price of new roads and make it more difficult to attract private investment.

Charges for cars on some of Sydney's largest motorways such as the M2 are, due to contracts signed with private tolling companies, are growing at twice the present annual inflation rate.

Asked about the proposed new tolls, a spokesman for Roads Minister Melinda Pavey said there was "always speculation around major projects".

"As the Premier said when she announced the project, we have commenced a market sounding process to investigate funding options and delivery approaches. That work is not yet complete," the spokesman said.

"We expect to have a detailed plan by the middle of next year."

Surveys for the government have shown a majority of people to be in favour of the new harbour tunnel and Beaches Link. However, they show northern beaches residents are more sensitive to paying to drive on motorways than those from other parts of Sydney because they have had less exposure to toll roads.

Residents in western Sydney are the biggest users of the city's toll roads.

The Berejiklian government faces growing pressure to fully consult communities about its plans for the Western Harbour Tunnel and the Beaches Link, which will require six exhaust ventilation stacks.

Some of the proposed locations of the ventilation towers, each between 20 and 35 metres high, are close to schools.

The cabinet documents show the government plan was for "stakeholder engagement" from late 2016 to the end of this year to focus on "coordinating activities to support the successful announcement" of the two tunnel projects.

And, in countering opposition from residents and councils. the proposed response was to emphasise that the government was announcing a "fresh approach to community engagement and property acquisition".

Likewise, to allay concerns that property prices will be hit, an "awareness campaign" would be rolled out to show the "bounce in local property values once a major transport infrastructure project becomes operational".

In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

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Benefits from a Wollongong-to-Sydney rail upgrade would exceed costs, Cabinet told

Work needed for an upgrade to the Wollongong to Sydney rail link that would deliver passengers to Central in 66 minutes produces benefits at up to twice the cost according to a previously unreleased Cabinet in Confidence report.

The proposed schedule, also seen by Fairfax Media, has express passenger trains taking 20 minutes to get from Wollongong to Helensburgh, 35 minutes to get from from Wollongong to Hurstville, 54 minutes to Wolli Creek, and 66 minutes to Central.

The main expenses would be a $2.9 billion tunnel from Thirroul to near Waterfall on Sydney's southern tip and completion of the long-stalled freight link from Dombarton near Dapto to the commuter line.

Costed at between $700 million and $800 million in the Cabinet in Confidence document seen by Fairfax Media, the freight link has a benefit-cost ratio of between 1.5 and 2.4 depending on the scenario chosen.

A benefit-cost ratio above 1 means the project is worth doing. A benefit-cost ratio above 2 is exceptional.

Among the benefits quantified are time savings, transport cost savings, avoided environmental externalities, avoided crash costs, road congestion, and avoided road damage.

The biggest benefit, transport cost savings, is estimated at $2.4 billion over 50 years, or $560 million in present day dollars. Time savings are worth around $1 billion, or $200 million in today's dollars.

To convert future benefits to present-day dollars the 2013 study used a discount rate of 4.4 per cent "in accordance with the federal department of infrastructure and transport's nation building appraisal guidelines".

A more recent Transport for NSW assessment, evaluated this year by Infrastructure Australia, used a higher discount rate of 7 per cent, even though interest rates had fallen during the intervening years. It awarded the project a benefit-cost ratio of only 0.9 meaning the project "would not generate sufficient benefits to justify its costs".

Projects with high upfront costs and benefits years out into the future look better when low discount rates are used and worse when high discount rates are used.

Answering a question in parliament, on behalf of roads minister Melinda Pavey in June, primary industries minister Niall Blair quoted only the Infrastructure Australia conclusion and not the conclusion of the minister's department.

On the same day primary industries minister Don Harwin, replying on behalf of transport minister Andrew Constance, misled parliament when answering a question about the rail tunnel under Thirroul saying it had not been the subject of a strategic assessment or strategic paper.

Fairfax Media has seen the assessment, contained in a Cabinet in Confidence document entitled Rail Corridor Strategy: Sydney to Wollongong produced in 2014, when current premier Gladys Berejiklian was transport minister.

On Wednesday a spokesman for Ms Pavey distanced the minister from the Maldon to Dombarton benefit-cost study conducted when Ms Berejiklian was transport minister, saying the 2013 study "relied upon assumptions about growth in the iron ore market that did not eventuate".

The less favourable 2017 Infrastructure Australia assessment was "in line with an earlier report from 2011 by the then-Labor government which found the project had a benefit cost ratio of 0.56."

Asked whether Ms Pavey would release the study that found a much higher benefit-cost ratio, the spokesman did not reply.

Three-quarters of the 35 kilometre link was completed by 1988 when the NSW government suspended the project in the midst of an economic downturn and lower than expected coal traffic. The line stops in mid-air on either side of the Nepean River.

The unpublished benefit cost study finds costs at around $780 million in present-day dollar terms more than offset by benefits at $1100 million. The total cost of upgrading the Sydney to Wollongong commuter line would be around $5 billion.

An F6 Extension motorway, under active consideration by the government as an alternative to the rail project, has a price tag of around $18 billion.

 

In The Age and Sydney Morning Herald

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