Delaying or cancelling the 11km Blackheath to Little Hartley road tunnel will be seen as treacherous by many who live, work, run businesses or travel through the upper Blue Mountains (“Perrottet should heed advice of experts and postpone projects”, June 1).

Since 2019, local community organisations and businesses have tirelessly grappled with defining a positive, or least damaging, option for the Great Western Highway to be duplicated in the mountains west of Katoomba. The “long tunnel” is the most economically beneficial, and least socially and environmentally negative of all the options discussed.

Residents and businesses cannot afford to wait years for the highway traffic snarls and accidents, and the pollution of increasing truck numbers, to get much worse before anything meaningful is done. 

Gary Moore, Blackheath

With a rethink on infrastructure expenditure, any regional expenditure has been decapitated (“Brakes on big spending”, June 1). Cancelling the tunnel under the Blue Mountains will only increase transport cost of moving essential goods into Sydney. Another 20 years of using the current dog track has far-reaching implications for supply chain costs. 

Bruce Clydsdale, Bathurst

The premier has acknowledged that infrastructure projects need to be delayed. But one that is proceeding is the light rail for Parramatta. Is this because Parramatta is a marginal seat, held by the state Coalition by a slim margin, and the next state election is in March 2023? 

Geoff Black, Caves Beach

SMH 2/6/2022

The tunnelling machine is too busy tunnelling knots under Rozelle... at what is called (by Gus's mate, Jules) "Spaghetti Junction".... Then the political neo-aestheticians of the city of Sydney want to demolish a perfectly good road and a perfectly good railway station to replace these with another set of Spaghetti tunnels that could get flooded by a high tide — keeping the engineers/builders/deconstructionists of this city busy thanking the gods of the Freemasons.... Meanwhile the Parramatta light rail shall disrupt Parramatta in accordance with delays and blown out budgets that could soon negate the political perceptions of Liberal (CONservative) improvements... 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE TODAY......................