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Victoria Road has been turned into a car park during the morning peak.Credit:Louise Kennerley

For the third straight day,motorists and bus passengers endured bumper-to-bumper traffic on the City West Link and Victoria Road. Atrip from Haberfield to the Anzac Bridge on the City West Link averaged an agonising 44 minutes in the morning peak on Wednesday.

Several months ago,Transport for NSW’s modelling had suggested traffic from the interchange would add only five to 10 minutes to trips on Victoria Road through Drummoyne and over the Iron Cove Bridge during morning peaks.

Those travel delays have now blown out.

It has left packed buses,which once offered commuters a quicker ride into the CBD,crawling along local roads as they get caught up in the congestion,turning what was once a 15-minute trip from Balmain to the CBD into a 45-minute journey.

Roads Minister John Graham and senior transport officials have a major problem on their hands.

Residents who have endured years of disruption from construction of the interchange will not tolerate weeks and months of this,let alone wait for relief to congested roads from the opening of theWestern Harbour Tunnel in 2028.

The minister offered few tangible remedies on Wednesday. Adirective for trucks working on government construction sites at Rozelle to stay off the City West Link during the morning peak won’t be the magical solution.

While emphasising that “there’s nothing off the table”,Graham and his Transport boss Josh Murray appear reluctant to do what many motorists reckon is the obvious solution.

That is,add lanes or make changes at thepinch-points that are causing the pain. A three-lane to one merge point from Victoria Road onto the Anzac Bridge,along with two lanes merging into one on the City West Link,are proving to be painful bottlenecks.

Instead,Graham and his transport chiefs seem to be praying that tinkering with traffic lights and signage,and more motorists using the new toll-free Iron Cove Link or avoiding the area altogether,will eventually bring some respite.

The rare bright spot has been that trips home from the CBD over the Anzac Bridge and through the Rozelle interchange during the evening peak are proving to be relatively smooth.

But if the modellers couldn’t predict this week’s chaos,any faith in them forecasting a way out of this mess will be in short supply.

Those hopes are fading as fast as the aspiration of turning a stretch ofVictoria Road into a tree-lined boulevard after the interchange had opened.

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