'''Sydney Orbital Motorway''' is a planned network of motorways (tolled freeways) encircling Sydney and is the longest Ring_road in Australia. ==History== Sydney is a city that grew organically compared to Melbourne, which had a rigidly imposed grid layout and Adelaide, which was surveyed and planned. Sydney's growth centres on urban centres such as the CBD, Parramatta, Penrith, Campbelltown and many others which are actually former towns swallowed by Sydney's urban sprawl. Roads that link these centres are frequently congested. In the 1980's freeways were built at the busiest parts. However, they are still not properly integrated into the road networks. In the 1990's with the introduction of Metroads, important circumferential Metroads are linked together to form the Sydney Orbital Motorway. They are built to take intra-urban traffic off local roads and relieve congestion. ==Network== The Metroads which form the Orbital are: *Metroad_1, Covering General Holmes Dr, Southern Cross Dr, Eastern_Distributor, Cahill Expressway and Sydney_Harbour_Tunnel *Metroad_5, From the M7 junction at Casula to the end of the Southern_Cross_Drive at the Airport *Westlink_M7, Connecting from M2 at Baulkham Hills to intersect at the M4 at Eastern Creek, before heading south to end at the M5 at Casula *Metroad_2, Covering Sydney_Harbour_Bridge, Warringah Freeway, Gore Hill Freeway, Lane_Cove_Tunnel and the M2 Motorway As of mid 2006, there is only one section which remains to be built which is the Lane Cove Tunnel. The completion date for this project is late 2006. At that time, Sydney will have a complete freeway standard ring road. The next step will be to build the links to the F3 and the F6 freeways. The former project is in the planning stage, and will be built as a tunnel under Pennant Hills road. The later link is much longer, with no planning as yet underway. There is an additional east-west section which may be added at some point (see the Marrickville_Tunnel and the M4 East), and which would bisect the orbital ring road. ==Highway links== Intercity highways are linked to the Orbital, moving traffic away from the old busy National Routes. They are: *F3 link -- linking Sydney-Newcastle_Freeway to M2 Motorway *M4 Motorway -- linking Great_Western_Highway to Westlink_M7 *M5 Motorway South -- Casula to Hume_Highway *King Georges Rd -- linking M5 Motorway to Princes_Highway, Southern_Freeway and Wollongong Category:Sydney_highways Category:Orbital_roads