A consortium of banks had proposed to build a tunnel under Sydney Harbour and Brereton was reported in the press as saying there were three possible destinations for the southern end, one of which would allow the demolition of the Cahill Expressway. I wrote to the department to suggest the fourth alternative: to merge the output from the tunnel into traffic at the eastern end of the Cahill Expressway. The combined outputs would make it economic to build the Darlinghurst Tunnels and grade-separated carriage-ways along South Dowling Street from Moore Park Road to Southern Cross Drive, giving Sydney the much needed grade-separated North/South spine from Chatswood to the shores of Botany Bay and potentially beyond.
I received a letter from the Department thanking me for the letter "and the interesting suggestions it contained" two days before the final plans for the Sydney Harbour Tunnel were released.
Clover Moore effused at the end of the Surry Hills Light Rail Forum on April 15th, taking advantage of her position as Chairperson, that they had not wanted to submerge the carriage-ways or make Crown and Bourke Streets two-way and she had had to fight for this. In fact grade-separated carriage-ways from Moore Park Road to Southern Cross Drive had been a given from the time of conception of the project and were crucial to the private equity funding that eventually allowed the tunnels to be built.
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