Warringah Freeway - History

History

Planning began in 1951. The first stage of the road opened on June 18, 1968. As its name suggests, the road was envisioned as the first stage of a freeway system for Sydney's Manly/Warringah area. An early alignment had the freeway crossing into the Manly Warringah area via Castlecrag, then later via Castle Cove. The freeway was never extended in this direction due to opposition by the residents of Castlecrag.

A large amount of residential and commercial property, half a golf course, and a cemetery were resumed by the government to build this freeway.

The freeway originally featured a 3x2x2x3 arrangement with the inner two carriageways both running in the same direction during the rush hour. The changeover process was slow both on the freeway and the Harbour Bridge, with large numbers of red plastic 'candle sticks' or 'candy bars' being manually moved four times every weekday. The original north termination point of the freeway was Chandos St Cammeray, with a small extension being added to Willoughby road in 1978. The Chandos Street ramps were moved to Brook St at this time.

It was not until 1992 when the Gore Hill Freeway was added to connect the Warringah Freeway to the Pacific Highway, that the road officially became part of Australia's Highway 1. Until then, it had been a short freeway that terminated curiously in the middle of the suburbs, despite being Sydney's most prominent freeway, the "F1", with 16 lanes connecting to the Sydney Harbour Bridge.