1992: The Formal Unveiling of a Freeway in Australia’s Most Populous City

August 23, 1992

Gore Hill Freeway in Sydney, Australia’s most populous city and the capital of the state of New South Wales (NSW), was formally introduced to the public in a Sunday morning ceremony. That day’s edition of the Sydney Morning Herald reported, “The $27 million Gore Hill Freeway officially opens today, improving access to and from Sydney’s oldest and newest traffic links — the Harbour Bridge and the Harbour Tunnel, which opens next Sunday.”

The public officials who inaugurated Gore Hill Freeway were John Fahey (1945-2020), premier of NSW; and Wal Murray (1931-2004), who was serving the state at the time as not only deputy premier but also the minister for both roads and public works. (The freeway did not actually open for motor vehicle traffic until that Wednesday.)

The 2.5-mile (four-kilometer) Gore Hill Freeway is part of both the Sydney Orbital Network, a 68-mile (110-kilometer) ring road around and through the city; and Highway 1, a network of highways circumnavigating Australia and measuring approximately 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers) in length.  

Photo Credit: Adam.J.W.C. (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Sydney Orbital Network, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Orbital_Network

Additional information on Highway 1 is available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_1_(Australia)