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A former senior transport official has warned Sydney's Western Harbour Tunnel and Warringah Freeway projects will be a "bloody disaster" for traffic.
Civil engineer Les Wielinga, a former CEO at the now-defunct Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), made the fiery comments at a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the bungled Rozelle Interchange.
The Western Harbour Tunnel, which is under construction, will allow drivers travelling between the inner west and the North Shore to bypass the CBD.
Entries and exits to the tunnel will lie at the Ernest Street interchange in Cammeray and near the Falcon Street interchange at North Sydney.
"It's going to be a bloody disaster," Mr Wielinga told the upper house committee on Friday.
Paul Forward, another former CEO of the RTA, told the inquiry he was concerned about the project's design.
"The question for the committee clearly is, 'Is this another Rozelle Interchange about to happen?'," Mr Forward said.
"You've now got three motorways coming out into this short area, and whilst I would recognise there are some exit points, some off-ramps, those motorways are now all going into the Lane Cove Tunnel," he said.
"A large number of lanes are going into two lanes at the Lane Cove Tunnel. Sounds familiar?."
Since opening in late November, the Rozelle Interchange has created major traffic problems in the inner west.
A bottleneck formed by the merging of traffic from the M4, Victoria Road and City West Link causes heavy congestion on the Anzac Bridge during morning peaks.
The Rozelle Interchange will eventually connect to the Western Harbour Tunnel.
Digging began north of the harbour in November and works are expected to take five years.
Transport for NSW (TfNSW) has previously said the tunnel's opening in 2028 would improve traffic flows on the Anzac Bridge.
But Mr Wielinga warned the tunnel's connection to the Rozelle Interchange would "blow the whole bloody thing up".
"You reckon you've got problems now? You wait," he said.
"If you don't change this bloody intersection soon, you're going to have a lot more to deal with, I can assure you."
Congestion flagged 10 years ago, inquiry told
The congestion caused by the Rozelle Interchange was predicted nearly a decade before it opened, the inquiry heard.
The RTA finalised the first business case for the WestConnex tunnel project in June 2013, with the help of road designers from around the world.
Mr Forward said the initial concept did not include the Rozelle Interchange.
"What was recommended by the world's best road designers was very different to what has been built today," he said.
In the project's initial design, the mainline tunnel that now leads motorists towards the Rozelle Interchange ran beneath Petersham.
An intersection in Camperdown was designed to ease traffic heading onto the Anzac Bridge.
In 2014, an expert review group was formed to assess these plans.
Mr Forward said it was at this point that TfNSW bureaucrats began to question the connectivity provided by the design.
The RTA's former director of traffic Chris Ford told the inquiry that 15 alternative designs were modelled.
Mr Ford said the modelling found that another motorway leading to the Anzac Bridge would cause congestion.
"The issues that we see today were very clearly established in the modelling in 2014," he said.
In November 2015, after Mr Forward and Mr Ford were dismissed, TfNSW updated the WestConnex business case to include the tunnel to the Anzac Bridge, despite the congestion concerns raised by the modelling.
In 2016, Transport for NSW updated the business case a second time, removing the Camperdown intersection and creating a tunnel linking the Iron Cove Bridge to the Anzac Bridge.
Under these changes, the number of lanes in both the east and westbound tunnels increased from three to four, and the Rozelle Interchange was born.
An Auditor-General's report on these changes published in 2021 found that "TfNSW documented, but did not publish, the rationale for the design changes".
Design changed to increase toll revenue, inquiry hears
In 2018, the NSW government sold its 51 per cent stake in the Sydney Motorway Corporation, the body responsible for operating WestConnex, to Transurban for $9 billion.
Mr Forward said the final design would generate a larger number of toll trips than previous options.
Labor MP Bob Nanva asked Mr Forward if the government was "fattening the pig for sale" by modifying the design to boost the number of toll trips.
"It is my view that the final design was an attempt to maximise the value of the motorway when it was put out for sale," Mr Forward said.
"I suspect it was the finance people who were pushing, because it was more valuable to sell the asset if it had more traffic on it."
Friday was the third and final day of the hearing.
The committee is due to report its findings in June.