Perth traffic: Commuters warned of pain as contractors appointed for Kwinana Freeway widening

Works to widen sections of Kwinana Freeway will finally get underway next year but commuters are already being told to prepare for traffic woes ahead of construction.

As WA Labor faces an uphill battle to retain the once safe seat of Secret Harbour at the upcoming byelection, Roger Cook on Sunday, announced a consortium of four building companies would undertake the works to deliver additional added along a 29km section of one of the busiest roads in Perth.

The largest change will be the addition of a third lane in both directions between the 11km stretch between Russell Road and Mortimer Road.

The northbound section between Russell Road and Beeliar Drive will expand to four lanes, while the southbound section between Roe Highway and Berrigan Drive will turn into a five-lane stretch.

Included in the project is also upgrades to median and verge barriers along with coordinated ramp signals on northbound ramps and noise walls.

The works are scheduled to begin in early 2027 and will take around two years to complete.

The group of builders, comprised of CPB Contractors, McConnell Dowell Constructors, Arup Australia Projects, and Jacobs Group, will begin negotiations with Main Roads WA prior to the contract award.

A $700 million budget has been allocated to the project, with the cost being split 50/50 between the State and Federal Governments.

Transport and Major Infrastructure Minister Rita Saffioti said the upgrades would save commuters significant time.

“Construction will commence early next year, and some of the benefits, of course, is reducing travel time, the estimates are 15-minute delays currently during peak times,” she said.

“We also know, and there’s feedback from everyone who are regular commuters, is that this congestion occurs on weekends, it occurs on any time of the day, so we expect some significant time savings.”

She flagged commuters could be in for some short-term pain before the long-term gain due to the complexity of upgrading working freeways.

“We apologise in advance, it will be inconvenient,” she said.

“We’ll try and mitigate that inconvenience as much as possible through the use of on-site technology and also having our incident response teams available to clear any breakdowns or accidents as soon as possible.”