Parramatta Road forms the major arterial road from the heart of Sydney to the western suburbs. It is augmented with 2 sections of freeway, one from the city to Ashfield via the City West and the other from Concord westward via the M4 motorway. The section between Ashfield and Concord is the original Parramatta Road which is not augmented with a freeway and this proposal fills in the missing link.

Once a road that was defined by local businesses supporting the many local communities it travelled through, increased traffic and the subsequent removal of street parking has left Parramatta Road a run-down stretch of roadway. Traffic has effectively killed the road. Air-quality is poor, planting limited and pedestrian street life almost non-existent. Local businesses have suffered with long term shop vacancies now a constant feature. The Masterplan to improve the urban, environmental, economic and social sustainability of the places and communities along Parramatta Road proposed a strategy to elevate the traffic above the existing road allowing it at ground level to become a smaller local road with wider footpaths, significant street planting and room for more sustainable forms of transport such as trams and bike-ways. A new mixed use, commercial and entertainment zone would be created underneath the raised motorway.

Location: Parramatta Road, NSW Australia -33.869394, 151.109404
Date: 2001
Design team: Theirry Lacoste, David Stevenson, Beth Hughes
Landscape architect: Spackman+Mossop
Planner: City Plan Services
Land economist: Collier Jardine
Photography / images: Lacoste+Stevenson Architects, Hong Kong 1998 photo