Penrith City Council will highlight a number of key issues with preliminary plans for the Werrington Arterial road linking the M4 and Great Western Highway through Claremont Meadows and Orchard Hills.
The Roads and Maritime Services has called for submissions on the Review of Environmental Factors, which details the plan for the road as well as the likely environmental impacts it will have.
Cr Maurice Girotto said that one of the major concerns is that Kent Road and Gipps Street will be widened and M4 access ramps constructed but the Gipps Street overpass at the M4 will not be widened.
“My main concern is that the bridge is not going to be widened this will create a bottleneck,” he said.
“That’s what happened with Mamre Road – the bridge was not expanded and so there was traffic banking up along the M4 which is a 110 kilometre speed limit.
“We then had to go back and rebuild the bridge, costing substantially more money.”
Cr Girotto said that it is important that plans for the Werrington Arterial are right the first time because the road is set to service high volumes of traffic for decades to come.
“In 1932 we built a bridge – the Harbour Bridge – with eight lanes. But you look at anything constructed in the last 20 years and it has all been rebuilt because there was not enough foresight,” he said.
Penrith City Council will also note that the Werrington Arterial is likely to make Caddens Road in Orchard Hills more dangerous because the road alignment is poor and additional traffic will exasperate issues with sight distances at the crests of the undulating road.
Councillors agreed on Monday night that substantial progress has been made on the road and that both the Federal and State Governments should be commended and both should be lobbied for further funding of the second stage.
