M7 Motorway and the local community

RTA projects are designed and undertaken with a strong commitment to local communities. The M7 Motorway development process included extensive community consultation. This ensured that needs identified by the local community became a part of the RTA’s project goals. Identified needs included accessibility, quality of life and environmental protections. RTA worked hard to keep local communities informed during all stages of the project and to ensure that any adverse impacts resulting from the project were minimised.

Consulting local communities

The RTA is committed to ensuring that local communities are meaningfully involved before and during construction. The consultation process with the communities affected by the M7 Motorway project included:

• A community involvement plan.
• Community liaison groups.
• Meetings with local residents on local issues

Bringing benefits to local community

The RTA strives to ensure that its projects benefit local communities. Some of the benefits of the M7 Motorway project include the following:

• Reduced heavy vehicle traffic on local roads. 
• Improved local air quality through traffic reduction.
• Reduced noise in primary residential areas.
• Tree planting and landscaping.
• 35 crossing points for vehicles.
• The provision of unimpeded bicycle and pedestrian crossings at multiple locations along the M7 Motorway including: 
  • Simms Road and Ainsley Avenue in Glendenning.
  • Redmayne Road in Horsley Park.
  • Florence Street in Oakhurst.
• A 40 kilometre cycleway with links to other regional cycle networks. These  include Western Sydney Regional Park, The Fairfield to Homebush Bay Cycleway and bicycle lanes on the M2.
• Improved travel times for local motorists.

Addressing the concerns of local community

The RTA planning and construction process include comprehensive measures to minimise the impact of  motorway construction on the community. For the M7 Motorway project, these measures included the following:

Keeping local community informed

The RTA ensures that local communities are provided with relevant and timely information before and during construction. Measures taken before and during the construction of the M7 Motorway project included:

• Ongoing advertising of construction activities.
• Newsletters, a website and two public display centres.
• Five community liaison groups.  
• A 24 hour hotline for the duration of the project.

Noise minimisation

The RTA took the following measures to minimise the impact of construction and operational noise on the local community:

• Extensive restrictions on noise and emission-generating construction activity.
• Traffic noise was reduced by the use of noise walls, by constructing mounds and by using open grade asphalt to pave the motorway’s carriageways.
• Households were offered mitigation treatments on a case-by-case basis to ensure compliance with NSW Government noise criteria

Preserving access

The local community’s concerns about access were met by:

• Maintaining vehicle and pedestrian access to properties and businesses at all times during construction and following the opening of the M7 Motorway to traffic.
• Maintaining cycle and pedestrian access. 

Preserving public transport

Public transport users’ concerns were met in the following ways:

• Maintaining public transport service levels for the duration of the project.
• Traffic management plans to manage traffic flows during construction, with priority measures for public transport, bicycles and pedestrians.

Preserving the environment

In order to preserve local sites of significance and minimise impact on the natural environment the RTA undertook the following:

• Individual environmental management plans to protect historically significant items and areas potentially affected by the M7 - these included Meurants Cottage, the Timber Barn site at Rooty Hill and a wooden building thought to be the remains of Coleman's Inn.
• Purchase of land to compensate for impacts on endangered ecological communities and with the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
• Protection and maintenance of remaining endangered ecological communities.