The first metro railway tunnel under Sydney Harbour has been completed, marking the halfway point of what is Australia’s largest public transport project.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Minister for Transport, Andrew Constance walked to the deepest point of the tunnel, 40 metres below the harbour floor, to meet the workers who built it.
“This is an engineering feat of historic proportions for our great city which will forever change how we get around Sydney,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“We have made history walking deep beneath Sydney Harbour for the first time, inside one of two metro railway tunnels to be built as part of this mega project,” she said.
Ms Berejiklian said the tunnel-boring machine was digging twin railway tunnels under Sydney Harbour as part of Sydney Metro.
“The machine was pulled apart and its giant 90-tonne cutter head and front sections were barged back across Sydney Harbour where it is being reassembled to start digging the second tunnel,” she said.
Ms Berejiklian said metro trains would start running through the tunnels in 2024, extending the North West Metro into the city and to Bankstown.
“Sydney Metro will have the ultimate capacity of a train every two minutes in each direction under the Sydney CBD and will be able to move more people across the harbour in the busiest hour of the peak than the Harbour Bridge and Harbour Tunnel combined,” Ms Berejiklian said.
