Retro Sydney.

[Terry Zarsoff]

North Sydney c.late 1950s. Removing the trams was almost certainly the greatest strategic planning blunder in Sydney’s history. A big cheerio to the long dead leaders of the Labor ‘gummint’, in office continuously from 1941-65, the perpetrators of that tragedy. You stupid, stupid, stupid clowns:

A tram on the ‘right of way’ down to Watson’s Bay. The right of way at Watson’s Bay still exists, tucked away behind shops/houses at the bottom of the hill, just near the Gap:

The last stage of the City Circle and the Cahill Expressway u/c:

The mighty Gladesville Bridge u/c. It opened to traffic in 1964:

The Warringah Expressway c.late ‘67. It opened in Jun 68:

 

[EagleGT]

Removing the trams was almost certainly the greatest strategic planning blunder in Sydney’s history.

Right up there with Wran selling off the land known as the M4 corridor. He effectively resigned Western Sydney motorists to nearly 40 years of traffic misery.

 

[BOZO]

Retro Sydney Super Car

 

[Eagle thru 'n' thru]

North Sydney c.late 1950s. Removing the trams was almost certainly the greatest strategic planning blunder in Sydney’s history. A big cheerio to the long dead leaders of the Labor ‘gummint’, in office continuously from 1941-65, the perpetrators of that tragedy. You stupid, stupid, stupid clowns:
View attachment 25074
A tram on the ‘right of way’ down to Watson’s Bay. The right of way at Watson’s Bay still exists, tucked away behind shops/houses at the bottom of the hill, just near the Gap:
View attachment 25075
The last stage of the City Circle and the Cahill Expressway u/c:
View attachment 25076
The mighty Gladesville Bridge u/c. It opened to traffic in 1964:
View attachment 25082
The Warringah Expressway c.late ‘67. It opened in Jun 68:
View attachment 25079

Fanatastic pic's!

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

Who else remembers this? The old ‘Blinking Light’ suspended above the intersection of Wakehurst Parkway and Warringah Road (looking west).

The ‘Light disappeared when they widened Warringah Rd (up to that intersection) from the new Roseville Bridge approaches, back in the mid-Sixties. The Bantry Bay Rd shops at left have since disappeared too, courtesy of the recent Warringah Rd upgrade:

The Warringah Expressway again. Some of the reasons given for the Bears terminal decline was the loss of junior breeding areas affected by:
1. The building of the SHB and its northern road/rail approaches at Milson’s Point, North Sydney and Waverton;
2. Manly joining the comp in 1947;
3. The development of North Sydney as a commercial centre; and
4. The impact the Expressway’s construction had on neighbourhoods in its path.
It’s easy to see here why the last one has ‘legs’:

 

[Terry Zarsoff]

Right up there with Wran selling off the land known as the M4 corridor. He effectively resigned Western Sydney motorists to nearly 40 years of traffic misery.

They generally didn’t own all of the land they needed in those abandoned freeway corridors. The corridors were gazetted, but that didn’t mean they owned every house/business they needed for the road.

It’s a positively good thing that inner western suburbs like Glebe were saved (thanks Nev) from the destruction that North Sydney endured, but they didn’t seriously consider any public transport or arterial road alternatives (to those freeways) at the time.

That didn’t start until (the now) Anzac Bridge was conceived. And of course the abandoned sections of the F3, F4, F6 and the link road between the three are now being increasingly realised, much of it underground (and preserving the suburbs above, but usually with a toll attached.

Luckily too we’ve had a state govt up until recently that started building things like the Metro to Parramatta, because the existing rail network is feeling the strain.

The loss of the trams, including the Northern Beaches’ trams back in 1939, has had a much more deleterious impact on the city’s development.