Gridlock ahead: Perth's industrial hub faces a decade of disruption

Kwinana bracing for decade of disruption with AUKUS pact to make area 'unrecognisable' It is 6am and truck driver Carolus Broers is standing outside a fuel depot in Perth's south with a service-station coffee in hand. It is here in Kwinana where the city's petrol passes through before being delivered to pumps across the metropolitan area. Carolus jumps in his tanker and hits the road bound for his first stop — a service station in Ascot, less than 50 kilometres away. Within minutes he is stationary. The truck crawls onto the Kwinana Freeway, where traffic has already ground to a halt. It is not peak hour. It is barely 7am. For the next 45 minutes, the truck struggles to reach 20km/h. For hundreds of truck drivers moving fuel, fertiliser and waste in and out of Kwinana, this is the daily reality. And it's about to get worse. Kwinana is on the cusp of its biggest transformation in decades. The region will become home to AUKUS submarine support facilities and a defence manufacturing precinct, while nearby Westport will become the state's future container port. Supporting that vision will require billions of dollars in new infrastructure, including a $1.1 billion upgrade of Anketell Road and a $700 million widening of the Kwinana Freeway. Construction is expected to begin early next year. 'Unrecognisable' The Kwinana Industry Council's David Harrison said the region will be "completely unrecognisable" in a few years. "We are gearing up for the largest infrastructure transformation in Kwinana's history," he said. "This is off the charts. We have never seen anything like it and we have never done anything like it. "We're looking at probably a decade or more of infrastructure upgrades. It's not going to be quick or easy." The challenge, he said, is keeping Kwinana moving while it is rebuilt. The region is the industrial heart of the state. "The fuel for your cars comes out of Kwinana. The fertiliser to grow our food comes out of Kwinana. Even the oxygen going into our public hospitals comes out of Kwinana," Mr Harrison said. "These roads are the arteries of industry. They have to continue to function." Meanwhile the US Navy expects up to 2,300 Americans to call Perth's southern suburbs home by 2030. Defence Minister Richard Marles said it was part of a rotational force to support the AUKUS nuclear submarine based at HMAS Stirling. "It's 1,200 personnel, there are civilians, contractors and families, which make up the larger number," he told reporters on Friday. The premier said more than six-billion dollars of construction work will take place ahead of the American influx, beginning next year. Planning ahead Waste company Veolia runs around 200 trucks a day collecting kerbside rubbish before taking it to Kwinana's landfill and waste-to-energy facilities. WA Municipal Manager Rebecca Goodwin said the company was already planning for heavier congestion by rostering extra drivers and trucks. "The impact is large. It is something we are planning for," she said. "We expect we will need at least another two trucks operating in that southern corridor … just to make sure we can get everybody's bins collected on time." Those extra trucks come at a cost, one Veolia hopes it will not have to pass on to councils and ratepayers. Fuel distributor Atlas Fuels faces the same problem. Operations executive Tina Hopkins said longer journeys meant more trucks, more drivers and higher operating costs. "We have to have extra trucks and extra drivers to manage the deliveries we need to do," she said. The state government has warned commuters to expect average delays of about 15 minutes while freeway upgrades are underway. Test of patience For freight operators, however, those delays quickly multiply across dozens of vehicles and hundreds of deliveries. By the time Carolus pulls into the Ascot service station, he's been behind the wheel for an hour and 45 minutes. They're already more than half an hour behind schedule and the major roadworks have not even begun. It's a glimpse of what lies ahead as Kwinana embarks on a once-in-a-generation rebuild. It marks the start of years of construction to support WA's industrial future, and a daily test of patience for the people who keep it running.