Lane Cove Tunnel
As most (if not all) of you know by now, the Lane Cove Tunnel was opened for public use around midday yesterday. Since there is a one month toll-free period, I decided to give it a try on my way to church. Here are my thoughts on the (rather short and uneventful) trip…
- Before the entrance, watch out for cars in adjacent lanes in case they happen to be driven by idiots who decide to use/not use the tunnel at the last second, and swerve into your lane.
- Pay close attention to lane markings and traffic signs. All lanes (usually the rightmost lane) marked “LCT” will take you into the tunnel. See previous point.
- There is an 80 kph speed limit in the tunnel.
- I saved maybe around 2 minutes on the trip, since I skipped a number of traffic lights that usually require you to wait a while (namely, the lights at the Mowbray Rd, Centennial Ave and Longueville Rd intersections). Note that this trip was off-peak, so YMMV.
I didn’t take the tunnel on the way back, since we went to Chatswood for dinner. However, heading north along Pacific Hwy seemed to have caused some of the less careful drivers to take a detour via the tunnel. I guess if you don’t want to end up in the tunnel, try to keep away from the rightmost lane.
So, will I cough up $2.55 for a one-way trip through the tunnel? Extremely unlikely. It seems like a rather steep price to pay for negligible time/fuel savings. Most of the time that I’d consider using it is during off-peak periods where the traffic isn’t too bad anyway.
However, it does look like Epping Rd has been set up to try to “encourage” motorists to use the Lane Cove Tunnel. Instead of three general-use lanes, it looks like there’s a mixture of bus/T3/24-hr T2 lanes resulting in fewer general-use lanes. This will most likely result in more congested traffic topside.
One thing that I’m rather concerned about is how the associated traffic changes will affect my trip to/from work. Since M2 motorists who don’t want to use the Lane Cove Tunnel (and I’m sure there will be plenty of them) now must use Delhi Rd to get onto Epping Rd, I’m anticipating very heavy traffic near that intersection. This is bad, since I happen to work not very far from that intersection. I guess I’ll find out soon…
For more information, check out:
I’m guessing it makes a bigger difference during peak hour when there’s traffic.