Western Distributor (Sydney)
Western Distributor is a grade-separated motorway that is primarily elevated for the majority of its route on the western fringe of the Sydney central business district. It links the southern end of Bradfield Highway at the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Victoria Road in Rozelle, at its western terminus near White Bay. It is a constituent part of the A4 route.
Route
The freeway distributes traffic arriving from the north via the Sydney Harbour Bridge while collecting traffic from the CBD, distributing it through Pyrmont and Ultimo before crossing over the Anzac Bridge. In the citybound direction, traffic is collected from Victoria Road and the City West Link, as well as various on ramps in the Pyrmont and Ultimo areas. Traffic is distributed into the CBD through various off ramps in Pyrmont and the western edge of the CBD, as well as into the Cross City Tunnel. The remaining traffic is fed onto the Sydney Harbour BridgeThe Rozelle Interchange as part of WestConnex was completed in 2023 providing a freeway-standard route free of traffic lights from the Sydneys CBD to Emu Plains.
History
The Western Distributor came to be out of the realisation in the early 1960s that the existing roads that supported the Harbour Bridge would not cope with contemporary and projected traffic volumes. Due to existing infrastructure and buildings in the area, it was decided to build a viaduct to carry traffic above the city streets.The southbound carriageway from the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Day Street opened 2 September 1972, the northbound carriageway on 30 September 1972, with the final stage connecting ramp from Pyrmont Bridge to the distributor’s northbound carriageway via Day Street opened 20 December 1972.
On 24 May 1980, the westbound Day Street to Harris Street section over the Darling Harbour Yard opened bypassing the Pyrmont Bridge. The eastbound section between Harris and Sussex streets opened on 7 August 19881 with the Pyrmont Bridge closed. On 8 November 1981 the interim westbound route via Sussex Street and Day Place was replaced by a ramp from Market Street
> The final stage opened in December 1995 with the Anzac Bridge replacing the Glebe Island Bridge.
The north-eastbound viaduct ramps leading towards Bradfield Highway, designed in 1967, was widened from to accommodate a deck with a variable width from and consists of a steel structure supported on reinforced concrete corbels.
The Roads & Traffic Authority re-aligned the eastern end of Main Road 165 from its old route from Pyrmont, to the southern toll plaza of the Sydney Harbour Bridge at Millers Point to the interchange with Pyrmont Bridge Road and Bank Street in Pyrmont on 22 January 1993, later amended to use the Anzac Bridge instead on 28 February 2003. Despite its role as a grade-separated motorway, the road is not officially gazetted as one by Transport for NSW classification, and is still considered today to be a main road.
The passing of the Roads Act of 1993 updated road classifications and the way they could be declared within New South Wales. Under this act, Western Distributor retains its declaration as part of Main Road 165.
Western Distributor was signed State Route 40 in 1981, and followed the route's re-alignment when Anzac Bridge opened in 1995. Its eastern half was also declared part of National Route 1, when it was re-aligned from its old route through the CBD along York and Clarence streets to its new route along Western Distributor to Harris Street in 1986, and removed when the Sydney Harbour Tunnel opened in 1992. It was quickly replaced in 1993 by Metroad 2 along the same alignment until the Lane Cove Tunnel opened in 2007 and Metroad 2 was truncated to meet Gore Hill Freeway in Lane Cove. The whole route was also designated part of Metroad 4 when its eastern end was re-aligned on the opening of City West Link in 2000. With the conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in 2013, State Route 40 was removed and Metroad 4 was replaced by route A4.