Opening nears for $2 billion motorway to Sydney’s new international airport

A $2.1 billion motorway to Sydney’s new international airport is set to open in March – three months before a project to widen the M7 toll road, which it will connect to, is completed.

Toll road operator Transurban confirmed that it expects the M12 motorway, which will link to the new Western Sydney Airport, to open in March, at the same time as connections to Elizabeth Drive.

The project to widen the M7 motorway from two to three lanes in either direction will be completed in June, months before the first passenger planes fly to the new airport. The M7 project has required 41 bridges to be widened along a stretch between Richmond Road at Oakhurst and the M5 motorway at Preston.

The toll-free M12 will connect the M7 at Cecil Hills, near Bonnyrigg, to The Northern Road at Luddenham and provide motorists direct access to the new airport, which is about 50 kilometres from the Sydney CBD. Some 14 kilometres of the 16-kilometre M12 have been completed.

Western Sydney Airport is slated to open to freight aircraft by the middle of next year, followed by passenger planes towards the end of 2026.

Transport for NSW said it could not give an exact date for the M12’s opening due to the complexities of the project and connections to the road network, other than to say it would be early next year.

The M12 will have two lanes in each direction and comprise 17 bridges, the longest of which is a 700-metre span over South Creek. Up to 30,000 vehicles a day are forecast to travel along the M12.

The bill for construction of the M12 has steadily risen – mostly under the previous Coalition government – since late last decade when it was budgeted at $1.25 billion. The federal government is covering 80 per cent of the cost of the motorway, while the state is paying the rest and delivering the project.

Transurban, which operates 11 of Sydney’s 13 toll roads, said almost four-fifths of its project to widen a large stretch of the M7 was now finished, and hinted at the need for further widening of a remaining part of the motorway, together with the western section of the M2, in the city’s fast-growing north-west.

Transurban chief executive Michelle Jablko said the north-west road corridor was becoming “increasingly congested”, although it was “a bit early to say when and if” works to widen motorways in that part of the city would happen.

Asked whether Transurban had put a proposal to government for further widening works, Jablko said it had regular discussions with the state about the performance of the city’s road network, but did not elaborate.

Transurban has been in negotiations with the state government over a shake-up to Sydney’s patchwork of toll roads for more than a year, following a review of the network by former competition tsar Allan Fels.

Jablko said she was limited in what she could say because it was a confidential process but Transurban was “genuinely optimistic about finding an outcome that works for everyone”. She said the timeline for the release of details about the outcome of the negotiations was in the government’s hands.

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