Through all this,it was obvious that it would take only a vehicle breakdown or minor accident to add to our journey time – and frustration.

We crawled up the hill towards the Day Street intersection in Drummoyne,and ahead lay the Iron Cove Bridge. Surprisingly,CBD-bound traffic flowed smoothly across the four-lane bridge (including one bus lane) after we passed through the last set of traffic lights in Drummoyne.

It was a crawl,however,for motorists heading in the opposite direction across the bridge.

After crossing,some city-bound motorists veer into right-hand lanes and into the new1.1-kilometre Iron Cove Link tunnel,which offers a bypass of a section of Victoria Road through Balmain and Rozelle.

For the purpose of this exercise,we stayed on Victoria Road,which was severely congested in the weeks after the spaghetti junction under Rozelle opened in late November. On Wednesday,the Greens are expected to successfully move to establish an upper house inquiry into the impact of the interchange on traffic flows,public transport and look at solutions to fix the congestion.

A short distance ahead,the drivers of a car and scooter who appeared to have had a minor bingle swapped details after stopping their vehicles across two lanes of Victoria Road,underlining how crashes or other unexpected events can add to the traffic chaos.

After the WestConnex intersection opened,this stretch of Victoria Road through Balmain and Rozelle was meant to see a50 per cent reduction in traffic,according to the previous Coalition government’s forecasts.

Instead,we joined another tailback on the climb along Victoria Road towards the Darling Street intersection,finally passing it 47 minutes after joining the queues at the eastern foot of the Gladesville Bridge.

The crawl continues before we finally reach the left-hand turn from Victoria Road onto the Anzac Bridge at 8.47am.

All up,it has taken us one hour and four minutes to crawl about 3.8 kilometres during the morning peak.

It would have been faster to walk – albeit with an umbrella on a sodden Sydney morning. Google Maps estimates the same journey by foot would have been 53 minutes.

Undoubtedly,Victoria Road failed the road test on Tuesday morning,again resembling a car park.