Great Western Highway - Duplication and Widening

Duplication and Widening

From Railway Square to Woodville Road, the highway was widened to its present width when it was reconstructed in reinforced concrete in the 1930s. From Woodville Road west to The Northern Road the highway was widened, generally progressively westward, from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. This section is a combination of six lanes with median strip, six lanes with wide landscaped median, and four lanes undivided. At The Northern Road Kingswood, it reverts to a four lane undivided configuration through Penrith shopping centre, widens to six lanes at the Castlereagh Road intersection, reverts to two lanes west from Castlereagh Road to Russell Street, and is then four lanes undivided with sealed shoulders from Russell Street to the base of Mitchells Pass, where it has been truncated.

Beginning at Glenbrook the Roads and Traffic Authority has since 1997 been duplicating the Highway, generally working westward RTA, Great Western Highway upgrade. This extends the widening to four lanes completed in 1981 from the Knapsack Viaduct to Glenbrook, and incorporates the dual carriageway Springwood bypass opened in 1967. The objective is to provide four lanes as far west as Katoomba and generally three lanes from Katoomba to Lithgow.

At present the continuous dual carriageway four-lane width reaches as far west as Woodford. Beyond this point, dual carriageway sections in the Blue Mountains stretch from Winbourne Road to Ferguson Avenue at Hazelbrook, from Bass Street to Ridge Street at Lawson and from Station St Wentworth Falls to just west of 'Shell Corner', west of Katoomba .

The 2.5 km of Victoria Pass is four lanes undivided except for Mitchell's 1832 causeway, which is two lanes, and the lower 400 m, adjacent to the bottom end of the abandoned Berghofers Pass, which is three lanes.

The highway is built as three lanes on both approaches to the River Lett at Hartley and for most of the adjacent Forty Bends section.

From Old Bowenfels to Lidsdale State Forest, east of Mount Lambie, there is continuous dual carriageway as follows:

- from Old Bowenfels to Bowenfels the highway was duplicated during the late 1990s

- from Bowenfels to Marrangaroo the highway was duplicated in the mid 1970s, with Marrangaroo interchange with Mudgee Road having been completed in 1970.

- the 1993 second Cox's River deviation was built as dual carriageway from Marrangaroo interchange to Lidsdale State Forest.

From Lidsdale State Forest as far west as Glanmire most of the highway is three lanes, with almost continuous overtaking lanes alternating between eastbound and westbound.

From Boyd Street Kelso to Brilliant St West Bathurst (end of Great Western Highway, at the intersection with the Mitchell and Mid Western Highways) there is a combination of four-lane undivided and four lane with median strip.