A $280 million highway upgrade has officially been opened to traffic today, with the transformed road set to free a notorious traffic bottleneck in Western Sydney.
From today onwards, the upgraded Prospect Highway is open for heavy vehicles to travel on, with 35,000 vehicles, 5,000 of which are trucks, using the road each day.
The New South Wales government says the highway had become a “slow-moving headache” in recent years due to the area’s traffic volume overtaking the road’s capacity.
Now, the previously undivided single lane road connection has been transformed into a modern divided highway with up to six lanes, connecting Western Sydney motorists with the M4 Motorway, the Great Western Highway, Old Windsor Road and the M2 Motorway.
The 3.6 kilometre upgrade provides six lanes between St Martins Crescent and Blacktown Road, with there being four lanes between Blacktown Road and Reservoir Road.
The state government says these changes will result in significant travel time savings, with previously travel times of 20 minutes along sections of the highway now being reduced to five minutes.
MORE OWNERDRIVER TRENDING STORIES:
- SRV Road Freight acquires food and beverage carrier
- December TOTM: AKV Haulage’s tribute truck
- Works to repair busy Western Highway for grain trucks
- Historic funding announced for the Bruce
- Pocket rocket behind the wheel of custom designed K200
The speed limit has also been raised from 60km/h to 70km/h between Reservoir Road and St Martins Crescent.
Alongside these lane changes, two new bridges have been added over the M4 and Great Western Highway, a new link road is in place between the Great Western Highway and Prospect Highway, and a kerb-side bus lane is in place in each direction.
“Prospect Highway is a vital north-south road in Western Sydney and, for too long, it was an outdated two-lane traffic bottleneck,” NSW Premier Chris Minns says.
“For truck drivers, time is money. This upgrade will improve traffic flow for the thousands of trucks that use it every day.”
Subscribe to the weekly Owner//Driver newsletter here.