Construction

The City West Link project, much to the disappointment of some local residents, simply involved the upgrade of existing roads and streets to at least four lanes. The process was carried out in four stages:

• Stage One: (December 1991) An underpass beneath Victoria Road opened.
• Stage Two: (February 1993) Upgrades from The Crescent at Rozelle to Catherine Street at Lilyfield, using Brenan Street. This section used a temporary one-way system to deliver traffic to Lilyfield Road.
• Stage Three: (May 1995) Dobroyd Parade and Wattle Street reconstruction was completed, providing four lanes between Parramatta Road and Hawthorne Canal, parallel to Iron Cove and Iron Cove Creek.^[3]
• Stage Four: (December 2000) Road extended from Catherine Street to Dobroyd Parade. A new bridge was constructed over Hawthorne Canal. City West Link became part of Metroad 4 (later A4), relieving a congested section of Parramatta Road.

The project is in some ways very similar to the South Eastern Arterial link in Melbourne: that road was built between two freeways and ultimately had to be rebuilt to eliminate at-grade intersections with traffic lights.^{[citation needed]} The only difference between the two is that the available space for the Melbourne road allowed the conversion without any land resumption, whereas the City West Link road is surrounded by properties which are in places only a few feet from the road edge. Like so many other new road projects in Sydney, the available land space and cash resources available lead to either too few traffic lanes or at-grade intersections.^{[citation needed]}

The passing of the Main Roads Act of 1924^[4] through the Parliament of New South Wales provided for the declaration of Main Roads, roads partially funded by the State government through the Main Roads Board (later the Department of Main Roads, and eventually Transport for NSW). With the subsequent passing of the Main Roads (Amendment) Act of 1929^[5] to provide for additional declarations of State Highways and Trunk Roads, the Department of Main Roads (having succeeded the MRB in 1932) declared Main Road 650 along the route, from the interchange with Victoria Road in Rozelle along The Crescent, City Link West Road, Brenan Street, Balmain Road, Lilyfield Road, Dobroyd Parade and Wattle Street to Parramatta Road at Haberfield (and continuing east along Frederick Street to meet with Hume Highway in Croydon), on 22 January 1993.^[2]

The passing of the Roads Act of 1993^[6] updated road classifications and the way they could be declared within New South Wales. Under this act, City West Link retains its declaration as part of Main Road 650.^[7]

Once the final upgrade was completed in 2000, the route was allocated Metroad 4, between Haberfield and Rozelle. With the conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in 2013, Metroad 4 was replaced by route A4.^[8] When the M4 East was opened in 2019, route A44 was extended from Paramatta Road and allocated along City West Link through Haberfield to the Ramsay Road interchange (where the ramps to the M4 East emerge), and extended a final time along its entire length to the interchange with Western Distributor when the Rozelle Interchange opened in 2023.

Post-opening

Motorists began complaining early in 2004 that the road had already become congested, less than four years after opening. The road ultimately feeds into Parramatta Road, thus congestion points on Parramatta Road have simply been moved to different areas rather than relieved altogether.

In 2005, a major bottleneck at the eastern end was removed. Previously eastbound traffic on the link had to merge from two lanes into one, just before joining Victoria Road west of the Anzac Bridge. There are now two lanes from the west link merging with the three from Victoria Road, to make four lanes over the Anzac Bridge.