This project needs to be delayed until a full business case and accurate costings can be produced; public transport has not been factored into this project and with other public transport infrastructure thriving in the city, this needs to at least be considered.
With the present information available, it is clear that the Climate and Sustainability outcomes are very poor, the Transport and Congestion outcomes are poor and the risks to children and residents are far too high. The cost appears to be astronomical but it is not really possible to tell without full costings

Strongly object to unfiltered emission stacks near schools.
Strongly object to the loss of green space.
Strongly object to this Exhibition period not being suspended during the current Covid-19 pandemic.
Strongly object to the increased congestion on local roads during and post construction.
Object too the dust impact that will be a health risk, especially for those with respiratory conditions.
Object to the negative impact that this will have on our property value and lifestyle immediate and long term.

There is not adequate filtration of the air especially due to proximity of the ANZAC Park Public school.

The area around the school is also one of the few green spaces around and would be lost as part of this proposition.

With water having been a huge issue and water restrictions still in place it seems poorly thought through to remove a dam that provides water our parks locally.

The lack of consideration or assessment of alternative transport avenues
The lack of Filtration for TWO Exhaust Stacks built as a single unit, very near to our school APPS
Truck movements in our local streets
The shutting down of access points to the Warringah Freeway for North SydneyLGA residents who will bear the brunt of the Projects for no gain.
The loss of Green spaces in an area containing a CBD [ Nth Syd]
Double Tolls on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Freeway& Sydney Hbr Tunnel
The massive increase in volume of traffic on local roads creating massive congestion permanently …as people have to reroute their daily journeys as access to freeway limited, rat running to avoid double tolls etc etc
The 6 years of construction and its impact on Nth Syd amenity for no gain whatsoever only untold permanent loss of amenity
Loss of Cammeray Dam which provides water through droughts to many of Nth Sydneys parks & green spaces.
Total ravaging of the North Sydney LGA to address a choke point flowing form Artarmon ..RMS themselves agree that NSYD loses heavily.

*I oppose the building of the Western Harbor Tunnel and northern extension. Building more motor ways is an outdated approach to moving the population around a modern, expanding city.
It places a huge and unneccessary burden on the urgent task to address and mitigate climate change.
Investment in world-class efficient public transport is critical to the future of Sydney.
The pollution that will defile Sydney Harbor would be a totally unacceptable result from the release of toxic substances from the harbor floor, from decades of waste tipped into the harbor. The process will render the harbor an unfit place for the population of Sydney to swim in.
*Further reasons to not proceed with granting approval to this proposal:
The lack of a Business Case
The lack of consideration or assessment of alternative transport avenues
The lack of Filtration for TWO Exhaust Stacks built as a single unit, very near to a PUBLIC Primary School at Ernest st Cammeray, Anzac Park Primary
The shutting down of access points to the Warringah Freeway for North SydneyLGA residents who will bear the brunt of the Projects for no gain.
The loss of Green spaces in an area containing the CBD of North Syd]ney
Double Tolls on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Freeway& Sydney Harbor Tunnel
The massive increase in volume of traffic on local roads creating massive congestion permanently to avoid tolls and traffic (as we currently see in Haberfield, Leichhardt, Annandale and Lilyfield)
The 6 years of construction and its impact on Nth Syd amenity for no gain whatsoever only untold permanent loss of amenity
Loss of Cammeray Dam which provides water through droughts to many of Nth Sydneys parks & green spaces.
Total ravaging of the North Sydney LGA to address a choke point flowing form Artarmon. RMS themselves agree that North Sydney would lose heavily.

In the worst scenario, should this terrible project proceed against so much opposition, as a formal CONDITION of any approval for these projects it is critical that you adopt limitations:
Full air filtration on all ventilation stacks - every other developed country overseas filters exhaust stacks on long (5km or longer) urban road tunnels and/ or bans diesel vehicles in tunnels of this length completely ;
Ongoing Air Quality Monitoring in the tunnel and at ambient sites as per the Brisbane Airport Link Tunnel – it is unacceptable to only monitor for 2 years after the tunnel opens as by that stage the tunnel will in no way be fully trafficked, ambient monitoring will also track impacts of exhaust venting from the tunnel in emergency or unexpected condition
That the Ventilation facilities MUST be built with the sufficient capacity to install Filtration Equipment if it is not mandated in the approval conditions. A condition that he Government must pay for the installation and operation if local particulate air quality (PM2.5) near the ventilation stacks location is above 8 mcg/m3 as motor vehicle emissions are the greatest source of such pollution in Sydne
That there is NO provision in any Sale/Lease Clause of the eventual asset that limits in any way the development by the State Government or any other Party of mass transit or Public Transport options that would service any part of the project. By way of explanation, when the M2 expressway was built it had a clause preventing the development of public transport or mass transport options on routes serviced by/ parallel to the route. For 20 years this has stopped a North West Metro line being actioned. Make a comment that this type of limitation must NOT be repeated with this project (and the Northern Beaches Link when/if that is proposed)
Dust Suppression Measures must be a Condition, as within the EIS Dust Analysis the EIS has presumed that schools only have a 100 pupils. There are over 18,000 High Dust Sensitive receivers identified already in the EIS just from the Cammeray Construction site without underestimating the school population by several thousand
Place the machinery buildings for the ventilation stacks underground in Cammeray, as is being done at the Rozelle site. We do not need to lose parks or golf courses
Build a dedicated bus lane in North Sydney CBD to service both railway stations (North Sydney and Victoria Cross). This ill speed up the B Line buses moving through the North Sydney CBD and exiting the city area
Use the international best practice filtration techniques (ESP and NOX filters) in the tunnel exhaust stacks needed to handle heavy trucks and diesel vehicles that are being diverted off existing roads. This is proven, stable technology.

Ideally install tranverse treated particulate and NOX filtration through tunnels (not just at the end in the stacks) for the safety of drivers and motorcyclists or ban motorcycles from the tunnel (as is done in Istanbul’s unfiltered 6.5 km Eurasia tunnel) who are at particular risk using an unfiltered long road tunnel
Using truck convoys during construction where using local roads so that individual streets can be opened (and closed) at reasonably predictable and nominated time, enabling local residents to plan accordingly
Providing shuttle bus transport to work site and designated on-site parking for workers so local businesses and residents do not lose access to their on street parking
If exhaust fumes and particulates from the unfiltered smokestacks are added to the air on days where bushfire smoke is already raising the air quality index (AQI) to dangerous levels (as happened onver the last Spring and Summer period) the situation will be made significantly worse. Therefore when the AQI reaches its ‘danger level’ of 200, the WHLink tunnels should be closed to all traffic
The EIS suggests “noise reduction pavement” be included on the Freeway anywhere that lanes are regularly being changed by the vehicles, and at the entry/exit points of all portals.
Before commencement of the work, plans and dedicated budget for the repair of all nominated construction sites at the end of the project to be RELEASED AND BACKED BY GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT.

No Western Harbour or Beaches Link tunnel approval until the REQUIRED EIS review and our concerns have been addressed and until NorthConnex (due to open mid 2020) has been open and operating for 18 months with at least 12 months of full operation air quality date available and reviewed as proof of “concept” for unfiltered stack on a long (9km) urban road tunnel using longitudinal ventilation

I strongly object to the Western Harbour and Warringah Freeway Upgrade project in it's entirety.
I live and work in Neutral Bay and am extremely concerned with the long term negative impact this project will have on the Lower North Shore community. This come from all aspects of the poorly executed EIS both pre and post project. Increases in pollution, noise, traffic flow and detrimental effects on health and wellbeing.
The EIS is over 9000 pages! This is an appalling amount of pages to present unanswered solutions to a project that is not needed or wanted by the community.
I request this project be cancelled in full and our tax payers money be spent on infrastructure that will cause less disruption and pollution.
Covid-19 should be a sobering reality check that the health of our country should come first. Our Public Health system requires this investment for all our sakes.

Dr B Goodwin
Neutral Bay

I'll keep this short and to the point,
I'm an Urban Designer who has studied Sydney's transport systems in great detail.
This project is clearly poorly thought out as it does not:
- even come close to the most cost effective option to resolve the congestion, its about 3 to 6 times more costly than other options.
- consider the countless studies proving that a roads like this will only bring more cars and bring even more congestion within a few years of it’s opening.
- consider public transport options which can be cheaper, quicker to build and achieve far greater results, all with about 2 to 5 times higher capacity. This has been proving all over the world, I’m sure this project is aware of that.
- consider the massively flawed modeling of traffic/congestion, which on top of this needs the government to limit other roads and bus routes to try to make it cost effective. It still falls very far short of even by limiting/underutilizing this existing infrastructure.
- consider the environmental impacts from air pollution and loss of parks etc, during and after construction. Which has relatively cheap and simple solutions.
- consider the loss of local housing prices, as happen for the WestConnex tunnel.
- consider the local residence wishes, there has been huge push back on this project which has not been addressed, as happen for the WestConnex tunnel.
- consider safe guards, without loop hoops, to guard residence houses and other aspect of construction. Despite clear evidence loop hoops was used to allow severe impacts to locals from the WestConnex tunnel construction, including changing/lying about tunnel routes and depths without local input. This has been very sad for some people as it has not been compensated, leaving many homeless or far worst off.
- look into clear suspicion of corruption from all the above matters not being considered, given all the clear evidence. I could cite all my evidence, however I’m just alerting you to it. Respectfully that’s your job to address it. It’s not hard to find, give how blatant it is.

To be very clear, non of this is threatening, defamatory, false or misleading. The suspicion and flawed modeling is very evident.

Please add all these points to the list and consider them in the EIS.
It’s your duty to resolve this issues, falling to address them is a falling of your department.

-

I strongly object to this project for a number of reasons.
The lack of a Business Case
The lack of consideration or assessment of alternative transport avenues
The lack of Filtration for TWO Exhaust Stacks built as a single unit, very near to i a PUBLIC PrimarySchool at Ernest st Cammeray [ Anzac Park Primary]
The shutting down of access points to the Warringah Freeway for North SydneyLGA residents who will bear the brunt of the Projects for no gain.
Double Tolls on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Freeway& Sydney Hbr Tunnel
Full air filtration on all ventilation stacks - every other developed country overseas filters exhaust stacks on long (5km or longer) urban road tunnels and/ or bans diesel vehicles in tunnels of this length completely ;
Ongoing Air Quality Monitoring in the tunnel and at ambient sites as per the Brisbane Airport Link Tunnel – it is unacceptable to only monitor for 2 years after the tunnel opens as by that stage the tunnel will in no way be fully trafficked, ambient monitoring will also track impacts of exhaust venting from the tunnel in emergency or unexpected condition
That the Ventilation facilities MUST be built with the sufficient capacity to install Filtration Equipment if it is not mandated in the approval conditions. A condition that he Government must pay for the installation and operation if local particulate air quality (PM2.5) near the ventilation stacks location is above 8 mcg/m3 as motor vehicle emissions are the greatest source of such pollution in Sydney
That there is NO provision in any Sale/Lease Clause of the eventual asset that limits in any way the development by the State Government or any other Party of mass transit or Public Transport options that would service any part of the project. By way of explanation, when the M2 expressway was built it had a clause preventing the development of public transport or mass transport options on routes serviced by/ parallel to the route. For 20 years this has stopped a North West Metro line being actioned. Make a comment that this type of limitation must NOT be repeated with this project (and the Northern Beaches Link when/if that is proposed)
Dust Suppression Measures must be a Condition, as within the EIS Dust Analysis the EIS has presumed that schools only have a 100 pupils. There are over 18,000 High Dust Sensitive receivers identified already in the EIS just from the Cammeray Construction site without underestimating the school population by several thousand
Place the machinery buildings for the ventilation stacks underground in Cammeray, as is being done at the Rozelle site. We do not need to lose parks or golf courses
Build a dedicated bus lane in North Sydney CBD to service both railway stations (North Sydney and Victoria Cross). This ill speed up the B Line buses moving through the North Sydney CBD and exiting the city area
Use the international best practice filtration techniques (ESP and NOX filters) in the tunnel exhaust stacks needed to handle heavy trucks and diesel vehicles that are being diverted off existing roads. This is proven, stable technology.

Ideally install tranverse treated particulate and NOX filtration through tunnels (not just at the end in the stacks) for the safety of drivers and motorcyclists or ban motorcycles from the tunnel (as is done in Istanbul’s unfiltered 6.5 km Eurasia tunnel) who are at particular risk using an unfiltered long road tunnel
Using truck convoys during construction where using local roads so that individual streets can be opened (and closed) at reasonably predictable and nominated time, enabling local residents to plan accordingly
Providing shuttle bus transport to work site and designated on-site parking for workers so local businesses and residents do not lose access to their on street parking
If exhaust fumes and particulates from the unfiltered smokestacks are added to the air on days where bushfire smoke is already raising the air quality index (AQI) to dangerous levels (as happened onver the last Spring and Summer period) the situation will be made significantly worse. Therefore when the AQI reaches its ‘danger level’ of 200, the WHLink tunnels should be closed to all traffic
The EIS suggests “noise reduction pavement” be included on the Freeway anywhere that lanes are regularly being changed by the vehicles, and at the entry/exit points of all portals.
Before commencement of the work, plans and dedicated budget for the repair of all nominated construction sites at the end of the project to be RELEASED AND BACKED BY GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT.
No Western Harbour or Beaches Link tunnel approval until the REQUIRED EIS review and our concerns have been addressed and until NorthConnex (due to open mid 2020) has been open and operating for 18 months with at least 12 months of full operation air quality date available and reviewed as proof of “concept” for unfiltered stack on a long (9km) urban road tunnel using longitudinal ventilation
I cannot believe that it is being built so close to schools, especially Rozelle Public School, with serious implications for potential damage to the school property, children's health and education, with significant noise, vibration and contamination issues from truck movements and construction.
A large percentage of the time these diesel engines will be idling especially as they queue to enter and exit the construction site itself, which will also in itself cause greater congestion for the existing traffic.
The deleterious effects on diesel emissions on children’s health are well understood and documented in the scientific community, this UK based study being a good example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5976105/
“…..there is also increasing concern that air pollution, especially from diesel vehicles, has major adverse effects in children and that this has long-term consequences. In this review, we report the evidence that underpins the need for exposure reduction policy to focus on diesel vehicles and the potential beneficial effects of such a policy on children’s health. Although this review focuses on the heavily dieselised UK environment, it is also relevant to countries where diesel vehicles remain a major source of emissions
This appears to be an underground tunnel that will stretch from the dive site at “WHT2” directly under the school grounds. We could not find any more detailed information in the EIS, we would like further details as to:
• The tunnel’s depth under the school playground
• Whether the tunnel will be excavated during school hours (9am – 3pm)
• The volume and typical size of construction traffic using the tunnel during school hours

General safety and traffic management during construction and operation
We are concerned that constructing and using the Western Harbour Tunnel will endanger our community’s safety and transport in many ways. These include:
• Potential safety risks for road users, including buses, pedestrians and cyclists during construction due to temporary road arrangements or the close proximity of construction activities to normal traffic
• Road closures and heavy construction vehicles making it very difficult for parents and small children to walk to School safely
• Negative impacts on parking in proximity to the School and wider in the suburbs
• Rat runs and increased traffic in side streets surrounding the School by drivers changing their routes due to increased congestion on Victoria Road
• Negative impacts on bus routes and stops on Victoria Road
• Negative impacts on cycle paths on Victoria Road. It should be noted that promises were made and subsequently broken about maintaining safe cycling infrastructure during the current construction of Westconnex stage 3
• That the management of all the impacts affecting the School identified in EIS are independently audited and reported
• That the traffic modelling and air quality modelling is independently audited and reported
Air pollution, noise and vibration during construction
Several years of construction works is proposed. This includes tunnelling and all associated work including: demolition, storing and moving rock, haulage by trucks and the workforce travelling, parking and more.
Above-ground work is proposed to be undertaken 7am–6pm Mondays to Fridays and 8am-1pm on Saturdays. Tunnelling work (and activities to support tunnelling) will be 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
We see in the EIS section 6.8.1 that:
“Blasting and rock breaking Controlled blasting (driven tunnels) 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday”
And in section 10.6.4 that:
“One educational receiver with buildings located in NCA 6.3 is predicted to experience noise levels above the noise management level by up to 28 dB(A) during various project stages”
Also, in section 12.5.1 that:
“Without mitigation, sites and activities that were determined to have a high and medium risk of dust impacts include…….
Victoria Road construction support site (WHT2): Medium risk (if unmitigated) of dust settlement and to human health from demolition, earthworks and track-out”
Additionally, serious contamination of Sydney Harbour, especially close to Dawn Fraser Pool, as a result of dredging and laying tunnel tubes down.
No traffic management from Birchgrove through the Peninsula, with heavy construction traffic going through residential streets.
I know that the State Government doesn't care about us, our children or our community, and I am aware of serious probity and ethics issues at DPIE.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/troubled-waters-but-cruise-talks-sail-on-20200324-p54di8.html
https://www.smh.com.au/national/out-of-sight-out-of-mind-whistleblowers-ignored-in-nsw-s-planning-department-20200322-p54cq2.html
And I fear this is a rushed process with little or no consultation. I know you won't pay any attention to our concerns but hopefully you'll take note of Alan Jones's. This is a terrible project — bad for the environment, bad for commuters, bad for taxpayers.

How unfortunate that in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, we are being made to spend time putting together a response to object the absurdity that is the Western Harbour Tunnel project. Surely the scale of this pandemic manifests how important it is to put health as an absolute priority. Unfiltered stacks, more pollution and traffic and 5 years of construction in the biggest educational precinct in Sydney, is a recipe for disaster. Thousands of children live and study in and around North Sydney. They are our future and we owe it to be thoughtful in our city planning for them. We are at a critical time in Australia, acutely experiencing first hand the effects of climate change, particularly with the recent bushfires. Therefore we ought to be putting as a priority investment and promotion of the use of public transport in order to decrease the number of vehicles on our roads. The Sydney metro project is already addressing this. Surely more train and bus services are the way forwards. Therefore it makes no sense whatsoever to be investing millions of taxpayer money into the Western Harbour Tunnel project that will only serve do the opposite.

From a personal perspective, I am a General Practitioner who lives and works in North Sydney. I have a baby and a toddler who both attend childcare and will eventually study in North Sydney. We live on Falcon Street and already the traffic and noise levels are very high. If anything we ought to be finding ways of reducing this. Going ahead with this project in it’s current form, will significantly adversely affect me and my family’s, personal, home, professional and educational life. Not to mention our leisure time, which usually occurs in local parks and playgrounds. From a medical perspective, I am extremely concerned about the short and long term effects of the dust, construction, pollution and unfiltered stacks, particularly for my young children. It is known that children’s lungs are still developing and so can be particularly susceptible to pollutants and irritants. I implore you to consider alternatives, particularly improving public transport links that are clearly are more sustainable and environmentally friendly way to improve transport infrastructure

I object to the tunnel project due to the proposed unfiltered smoke stacks located close to schools. I am concerned for the health of my children, all the children and community in general.
Also I am concerned with the loss of green space around north Sydney.