The M4 tunnel is no place to be kept in the dark

1 hour ago 1

Editorial

December 5, 2025 — 3.22pm

The trapping of motorists underground in the M4 Motorway Tunnel during the morning peak and gridlocking traffic across the city for hours is a reminder of the vulnerability of Sydney’s infrastructure. But Thursday’s catastrophe has been compounded by the open warfare that erupted between Transurban and the Minns government over the emergency closure.

Motorists, both above and below ground, were kept in the dark for hours while authorities dithered and their failure to act cohesively resulted in a massive lack of communication to inform the drivers and commuters what went wrong and how long a fix would take. And a day later, authorities were still passing the buck and the motoring public was none the wiser.

Premier Chris Minns and Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison (left) celebrate the breakthrough of the Western tunnel in March.

The closure followed the discovery of bulges in a type of concrete known as shotcrete, a form of sprayed-on concrete which separates the tunnel from a waterproof membrane and the sandstone above, during a routine overnight inspection of the M4, which is part of the WestConnex toll network.

Transurban shut the tunnel between Haberfield and North Strathfield for more than seven hours on Thursday morning amid the very reasonable fears that the concrete roofing could fall onto traffic. Parts of the tunnel remained closed late into the night as motorists were belatedly advised to allow plenty of extra travel time.

Of course, engineers made the right call to close the tunnel. But Transurban seems to have suffered a form of gridlock itself in responding to the emergency. There are claims motorists were not told in time about the closure so they were trapped in the tunnel. Further, the private operator refused a government offer of engineers to help.

Countering the criticism, Transurban’s general manager for WestConnex, Denise Kelly, said the state’s transport agency was indeed notified and issued an alert before 6am advising the tunnel closure.

But the NSW Roads Minister Jenny Aitchison asserted that Transurban not only failed to advise users about the closure in time for the morning peak but rebuffed offers of assistance from Transport for NSW.

“This tunnel is privately operated, and while Transport [for NSW] has been working incredibly hard to provide offers of assistance … at the end of the day, it is a decision of Transurban about how they operate and manage the tunnel,” she said.

However, some of the prosaic tasks of government are to make trains run on time and keep traffic flowing. When the wheels stop, ministers like Aitchison just cannot say it’s somebody else’s problem and wash their hands on the specious grounds that previous governments had partly, and then fully, outsourced the massive WestConnex infrastructure project to a private operator as a sort of toll-collecting Magic Pudding.

Infrastructure fails are too important for blame games. Both players need to get together to plan a better response for the inevitable next time. Perhaps the only bright spot, and it is a rather puny dim one, is that Linkt, the Australian tolling brand used by Transurban, is offering affected motorists a refund.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.