Great Western Highway

Great Western Highway
Proposed & to replace & respectively
General information
Type
Length	210 km (130 mi)
Route number(s)	Chippendale - Haberfield: Formerly Ashfield - North Strathfield: Formerly North Strathfield - Emu Plains: Formerly Lapstone - Bathurst:
	Liverpool Road Centenary Drive Woodville Road Church Street Westlink Wallgrove Road Rooty Hill Road South Metroad 9 Bells Line of Road Castlereagh Highway O'Connell Road Bathurst-Ilford Road Mid-Western Highway
Location(s)
via	Petersham, Ashfield, Parramatta, Eastern Creek, St Marys, Penrith, Emu Plains, Springwood, Katoomba, Mount Victoria, Lithgow

Travelling westbound on the Great Western Highway in Springwood

The Great Western Highway is a highway in New South Wales, Australia. It runs 210 km from Sydney to Bathurst.

Starting as Broadway at the intersection of City Road (part of the Princes Highway) near the fringe of the Sydney CBD, and becoming Parramatta Road to Parramatta itself, the Great Western Highway heads due west from Parramatta across western metropolitan Sydney to Penrith, where it crosses the Nepean River. It then crosses the Blue Mountains and after crossing Coxs River climbs the Great Dividing Range before dropping into the Macquarie Valley to Bathurst.

History

In 1813, acting on the instructions of NSW Governor Lachlan Macquarie, Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth, travelled west from Emu Plains and by staying to the ridges were able to confirm the existence of a passable route directly west from Sydney across the Blue Mountains. The existence of other, less direct routes had been known as far back as 1797, but due to the need to prevent convict escapes in the belief that escape from the hemmed-in Sydney region was possible, knowledge of the expeditions confirming the existence of routes across the Blue Mountains was suppressed.

By 1813, under Macquarie’s astute governorship the colony began to evolve from a penal settlement to an economic colony, and there was a desperate need to increase the food supply and confirm the existence of lands suitable for the expansion of agriculture and thus economic development.

Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth travelled as far west as the point they named Mount Blaxland, 25 km southwest of where Lithgow now stands. From this point they were able to see that the worst of the almost impenetrable terrain of the Blue Mountains was behind them, and that there were easy routes available to reach the rolling countryside they could see off to the west.

Macquarie then despatched Surveyor William Evans to follow Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth's route and to push further west until he reached arable land. Evans travelled west until he reached what is today called the Fish River and followed it downstream until he reached the site of Bathurst.

Within a year, Governor Macquarie had engaged William Cox of Richmond to construct a road west from Emu Plains on the Nepean River, following Evans’ route, and this road was finished in 1815. Macquarie himself travelled across it soon after completion, established and named Bathurst, and named the road the Great Western Road.

The section of the Great Western Road as far west as South Bowenfels (in Lithgow) is with very few deviations still in use today as part of the Great Western Highway (it was redesignated when the current NSW main road system was gazetted in 1928). From South Bowenfels, the highway now turns northward and follows a route parallel to but north of Evans’ route via Meadow Flat, to converge with it again at Bathurst. Most sections of the original route from South Bowenfels to Bathurst, which runs via O’Connell, are still trafficable.

Early Improvements

Early in the life of the Great Western Road two major deviations from Cox's route were undertaken, and in respect of the Blue Mountains section of the Highway, they remain the major deviations to date. These were on the eastern ascent and western descent of the Blue Mountains.

When Governor Ralph Darling appointed Thomas Mitchell as the Surveyor-General in 1828, one of the first matters to which Mitchell turned his attention was the improvement of the Great Western Road. Mitchell’s attention was focussed on the worst sections of the road, which were the climb from the Cumberland Plain, on which Sydney sits, and the descent of Mount York, down the western side of the Blue Mountains.

In improving the eastern ascent Mitchell adhered largely to Cox’s route, which follows the southern side of an east-falling gully to reach the plateau at where Blaxland is now located. However he engaged the Scots engineer David Lennox to build a stone arch bridge across the mouth of a particularly deep side gully, and this bridge is still in use, although it has been restored several times.

This route was later superseded by what is now called Old Bathurst Road (although it is not the first route). This is located to the north of the original route. Some of the original access tracks used by convicts during the initial construction phase of the road still exist as part of an elaborate mountain bike trail network on the eastern side of the escarpment.

After the ascent of the eastern escarpment by the Main Western Railway was deviated for the second time in 1913 to its current route via Glenbrook Gorge, the Great Western Road was deviated for a second time in 1926 by the then Main Roads Board, which rerouted it via the fine 1867 stone arch viaduct across Knapsack Gully and around the southern side of Lapstone Hill to gain the first plateau in the ascent of the Mountains.

As this viaduct had held only a single railway track, its deck was widened in 1938 to its present two lane configuration. The viaduct was closed when the M4 motorway was extended west from Russell Street to connect directly to the Highway in 1994.

West of Knapsack Gully, although now widened to four lanes, this 1926 route is still in use. It uses a long stretch of the abandoned railway formation – the section from Zig Zag Street to Blaxland station is all located on the original 1867 railway alignment. An indication of the need to divert the railway can be gained from the gradient of the highway as it climbs west from Hare St to Lovett Street.

After protracted arguments first with Governor Darling and then his successor Richard Bourke, and ignoring orders, Mitchell surveyed, designed and had built what is now known as Victoria Pass, where the Highway drops from the Blue Mountains into the Hartley Valley. Midway down the road had to be supported on a causeway formed by massive stone buttressed walls, where a narrow ridge connects two massive bluffs. This ridge had to be widened and raised to give the highway a route from the upper to the lower bluff. Mitchell cut terraces into the sides of these to form a passage for the road. It is a testimony of Mitchell’s vision and engineering skill that this route, almost unchanged, and using his 1832 stonework, is still in use.

Originally the Great Western Road crossed the Nepean by means of a ferry, located adjacent to the Log Cabin Hotel at Penrith. This was superseded in 1856 by a bridge which was washed away in 1857. A second bridge was opened in 1860, and was washed away by the record flood of 1867. In 1867 a new bridge, Victoria Bridge, was built as part of the Penrith-Weatherboard (Wentworth Falls) section of the Main Western Railway and it also accommodated highway traffic. This bridge continued in dual use until 1907 when the current steel truss railway bridge was built alongside, and the 1867 bridge was given over solely to road traffic. This bridge remains in use for the Great Western Highway. The design of this bridge is almost identical to that of another railway crossing of the Nepean River, the 1863 bridge at Menangle.

Recent Upgrading

In 1968 a dual carriageway 3 km deviation was opened at Prospect. This replaced the only winding section of the Highway between Parramatta and Penrith.

In 1967, the highway was deviated to bypass Springwood shopping centre, eliminating two narrow underpasses of the railway. These remain in use for local traffic.

In 1957 a short deviation immediately west of Linden eliminated two narrow overpasses of the railway, both of which had right angle bend approaches from both directions.

During 1991-1993 a massive cutting was made to improve and widen the alignment of the highway immediately east of Woodford. At the top of the southern side of this cutting can be seen the rudimentary excavation of the rock for Cox’s 1815 road. This was severed in 1868 by the construction of the Springwood-Mount Victoria section of the Main Western Railway. The railway itself was deviated at this point in the 1920s when it was duplicated, and a cutting on the original alignment of the railway now forms the top section of the southern face of the highway cutting, the terrace in the face of the cutting being the bed of the original cutting.

At Katoomba station the Highway now travels along the eastern side of the railway station, whereas the original alignment crossed the railway via a level crossing at the north end of Katoomba St and ran along the western side of the railway. Immediately west of where the Highway now crosses the railway due to this deviation, the highway was realigned over a distance of 1 km in 2004 to remove the sharp bend at 'Shell Corner' and improve the gradient.

A major realignment west from Mount Boyce (the highest point on the highway) to eliminate the Soldiers Pinch and other nearby sharp curves was completed in 2002.

In the 1950s the 'Forty Bends’, where the Highway runs along the foot of Hassans Walls approaching Lithgow, were eased. The fact that this section of the Highway is on the southern side of a very high escarpment poses severe ice problems during winter, due to the lack of sunlight.

During the 1990s minor deviations of the Highway were undertaken in conjunction with widening through the Lithgow suburbs of South Littleton and Bowenfels. This route, which was to 1928 the Mudgee Road, crossed the railway by way of a level crossing at Bowenfels. This crossing was replaced by an underpass in 1929 when the railway was duplicated and the Highway was rerouted from the earlier Bowenfels-Tarana-Bathurst route, and this in turn was replaced by the present dual carriageway overpass further west in 1984.

Between Marrangaroo Creek and the state forest west of Wallerawang, the highway was reconstructed in reinforced concrete as an unemployment relief project in the 1930s. Most of this was removed when the highway was deviated and duplicated in the 1990s. Further west, the highway has been almost entirely rerouted, although in some places only marginally, as far as Meadow Flat. From here to the foot of the Yetholme climb the Highway was almost entirely reconstructed and widened to three lanes for most of its length, in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

In Bathurst, the Denison Bridge (1870) has been bypassed by a realignment of the Highway as it crosses the Macquarie River into Bathurst city centre.

In 1994 the highway route was severed at Emu Plains with the closure of the Knapsack Gully Viaduct. This occurred in conjunction with the westward extension of the M4 motorway from its terminus since 1971 at Russell Street, Emu Plains. This extension connects directly to the highway at Lapstone, bypassing the viaduct. The portion of the Great Western Highway west from Russell Street to Mitchells Pass Road is now only used by local traffic to access residential properties. Mitchells Pass, travelling east from Blaxland, is one way eastbound between Lennox Bridge and the Whitton Memorial, due to its narrowness.

Duplication & Widening

From Railway Square to Woodville Road, the highway was widened to its present width when it was reconstructed in reinforced concrete in the 1930s. From Woodville Road west to The Northern Road the highway was widened, generally progressively westward, from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. This section is a combination of six lanes with median strip, six lanes with wide landscaped median, and four lanes undivided. At The Northern Road Kingswood, it reverts to a four lane undivided configuration through Penrith shopping centre, widens to six lanes at the Castlereagh Road intersection, reverts to two lanes west from Castlereagh Road to Russell Street, and is then four lanes undivided with shoulders from Russell Street to the base of Mitchells Pass, where it has been truncated.

From the Knapsack Viaduct (at Lapstone) westward, the Roads and Traffic Authority has been slowly widening the Highway to four lanes. Parts of this work are dual carriageway. At present the four lane width reaches as far as Woodford. Beyond this point, dual carriageway sections stretch just before Station St at Wentworth Falls to just west of the Shell Corner 'deviation', west of Katoomba [1].

• RTA, Great Western Highway upgrade

The 2.5 km of Victoria Pass is undivided four lanes except for Mitchell's 1832 causeway, which is two lanes, and the lower 400 m, adjacent to the bottom end of the abandoned Berghofers Pass, which is three lanes. The RTA has plans to bypass Victoria Pass and River Lett Hill, three options having been determined but are yet to be finalised.

The highway is dual carriageway from South Bowenfels through Lithgow, and this extends west almost to Mount Lambie, where the Highway crosses the Great Dividing Range.

From Mount Lambie to Bathurst most of the highway is three lanes, with the overtaking lanes being mostly eastbound.

Route Numbers

When the national route numbering system was introduced in 1954, the full length of the Great Western Highway was designated as part of national route 32 (Sydney-Adelaide via Dubbo and Broken Hill), with the section from City Road to the Hume Highway (Liverpool Road) Summer Hill also being part of national route 31.

Current numbering is extremely confused, as follows: City Road to Hume Highway (Liverpool Road) Ashfield - state route 31, following the introduction of the 'Metroads' in the late 1990s. Before M5 East was opened in late 2001 it was Metroad 5.

Liverpool Road, Ashfield to Wattle Street, Haberfield - no route number since the diversion via Stage 3, City-West Link on June 2, 2000.

Wattle Street, Haberfield to M4 Western Motorway intersection at Strathfield - part of Metroad 4.

M4 Western Motorway intersection at Strathfield to Russell Street, Emu Plains - state route 44.

Russell Street-M4 at Lapstone (Knapsack Viaduct now closed) - no number.

M4 at Lapstone to intersection of Mitchell and Mid Western Highways in Bathurst (end of Great Western Highway) - national route A32.

National route A32 continues along the Mitchell Highway as far as Nyngan, then follows the Barrier Highway to Gawler, 25 km north of Adelaide, where it connects with the Sturt Highway (National Route A20). The Mid Western Highway is national route 24 over its full length of Bathurst to Hay, where it meets the Sturt Highway (national route 20) and Cobb Hwy (part of national route 75).

Route Number Changes

Before the North Strathfield-Mays Hill and Huntingwood-Emu Plains sections of the then Western Freeway were joined by the construction of the missing link from Mays Hill to Huntingwood, the section of the highway between Reservoir Road, Huntingwood and Russell Street, Emu Plains was signposted as national route 32. When Metroads were introduced, the highway east of North Strathfield and the full length of the Freeway were designated as Metroad 4. The section of highway from Wattle St to the Liverpool Rd became unnumbered following the opening of the final stage of the City-West Link, so that Metroad 4 commenced under freeway conditions at Anzac Bridge, joining the Harbour Bridge and Cross-City Tunnel.

From the introduction of the Metroads until the opening of the M5 East (General Holmes Drive to King Georges Road) in 2001, the part of the highway between Railway Square and the Hume Highway was designated as part of Metroad 5. When the M5 East was completed, the Metroad 5 designation was assigned to the freeway; those parts of the highways (both Great Western/Hume Highway) which had been part of Metroad 5 were now given over to a logical continuation of State Route 31 east beyond Metroad 3, from Centennial Drive into the city.

From North Strathfield to Russell Street, Emu Plains the highway is now state route 44 (as is the section of Russell Street from the Highway to the M4).

Names

From Sydney to Blue Mountains -Broadway -Parramatta Road (officially renamed Great Western Highway in 1928) -Church Street (officially renamed Great Western Highway in 1928) -Great Western Highway -Henry Street -High Street -Great Western Highway -Russell Street -Great Western Highway

See also

• Highways in Australia
• Highways in New South Wales