The WestConnex M8 opened on Sunday 5 July in Sydney. The new M5 East motorway has been named the M8. The 9km M8 twin tunnels run from the end of the M5 Motorway at Kingsgrove to the new St Peters Interchange, where there is easy access to places like Mascot, Alexandria, Redfern and Randwick. The M8 is the second major underground stage of the WestConnex motorway network in Sydney to open and it is marked at two lanes in each direction with capacity to add a third lane when required.

The M8 doubles capacity of the M5 East Tunnels, and will save motorists around 30 minutes on a journey from south west Sydney to the southern CBD.

It connects to upgraded local roads at St Peters, including two new bridges over Alexandra Canal, as well as the M5 corridor. It is future focused, with connections to future projects including the M4-M5 Link (WestConnex Stage 3A), Sydney Gateway to the airport and the M6 to southern Sydney.

When complete in 2023, WestConnex will provide a traffic-light free, mostly underground, 33km motorway network. Click here and here for more details.

WestConnex tunnel portal

M4-M5 Link Tunnels are paving the way

The team building the M4-M5 Link Tunnels have now commenced placing the first layers of concrete paving. More than 1,000 people are currently working on the project, including project staff and workforce, with many more contractors and sub-contractors also engaged on site.

The project is progressing well with more than 8 kilometres of excavation now complete, and we are on track to reach the half way point in July this year. Excavation is anticipated to be complete towards the end of 2021.

The M4-M5 Link Tunnels are planned to open in 2023. For tunnelling progress click here and for the tunnelbuilder archive reports on the project please click here and au/13. Also visit https://www.westconnex.com.au/. 28/20.