As the third Sydney Harbour crossing reached a major milestone this week, the Minister for Roads has refused to say whether public transport services will run through the tunnel.
What happened: In June, Patyegarang — one of two 4,000-tonne tunnel boring machines excavating the Western Harbour Tunnel — began burrowing from Birchgrove to Waverton, 50 metres below the surface of Sydney Harbour.
The Western Harbour Tunnel is a $7.4 billion infrastructure project connecting Rozelle and Cammeray.
On Tuesday, Patyegarang’s cutterheads reached their halfway point across the harbour. On the Waverton side of the tunnel, journalists gathered to view the “nozzle” where the boring machine will break through, and the vast chamber where the machine will be disassembled.
Logistical challenges mean parts of the machine, including its cutterheads and shields, will not be removed from the site, but entombed in a chamber to the tunnel’s east.
People on the North Shore are keen to know whether buses will run between Cammeray and Rozelle. Early project documents from 2018 showed artist impressions with buses in the tunnel.
However, in October 2025 Transport for NSW told the Lorikeet it had no plans to establish bus services through the tunnel. When pressed by the Lorikeet on the issue, the Minister for Roads Jenny Aitchison, who attended the tour of the tunnel, did not give a clear answer.
“We are obviously working through all of those issues, and ensuring that we’ve got good public transport for Sydney,” she said.
“We’ve got the dedicated lanes on Warringah Freeway, and part of that was ensuring that dedicated lane would ensure that we would have good, quick services into the city.”