Dooming the Onehunga Line to Failure

Sometimes you do have to wonder whether there’s a conspiracy out there to doom Auckland’s rail system to fail. The decision to only have a two track tunnel into Britomart will create enormous heachaces over the next 10-20 years until the city gets its act together and build the CBD rail loop. Similarly, the trains to Helensville – brought in last year – have been a failure due to the super-early departure time, and the fact that the line is so terribly slow. The Manukau rail link is also likely to be a failure, because Manukau City Council haven’t stumped up a few million to extend the link to somewhere actually meaningful (rather than a park that will probably seem fairly dangerous after dark).

So now we have the Onehunga Line. This line is due to open in around January next year, and will be the reinstatement of passenger services to Onehunga for the first time since 1973. Although this is a fairly small step towards creating a better rail system for Auckland, it’s a good step and a very necessary step in offering Onehunga better public transport options. While a lot of buses go through Onehunga, the main link between there and the city (Manukau Road) does not have any bus lanes. Therefore the trip is pretty slow, for both bus users and car users. The estimated time for travel between Onehunga and Britomart was around half an hour – a pretty damn attractive proposition.

Well, that was until we hear this week the service won’t actually be going from Britomart to Onehunga, but instead only between Newmarket and Onehunga. Mark my words, this WILL make it a failure. I first heard about this possibility in reading an “Ask Phoebe” column earlier in the week. Someone had asked a question about trains to the airport, and included in the response was this intersting bit: “The Auckland Regional Transport Authority is working with Ontrack to enable passenger services to resume. Initially they will run between Newmarket and Onehunga, and in the future services will be offered between Britomart and Onehunga as well. The hope is to have things up and running by January next year.” So, only “in the future” is given as a possibility for trains running between Britomart and Onehunga. There’s no reason for this change that is given, although one would have to assume it is because of congestion issues around the Britomart tunnel. Once again, this drives me absolutely nuts in that our rail system is getting clogged at a point when it’s only really in its infancy. 

I did kind of wonder whether Phoebe had got it wrong, as she did make an error about the working of the new Newmarket station in her column last week. However, Cameron Pitches from the Campaign for Better Transport, confirmed the change:

No it isn’t a mistake – Newmarket only. A CBT rep had it confirmed yesterday directly from ARTA. Also station likely to be on Galway street, delayed opening until January, and no word on feeder bus services from Mangere. Other stations unconfirmed. Preferred ex-ITM site is now for lease. The apparent delay with station construction is because resources are currently being used for Newmarket.

I’m concerned and we are escalating this.

I also can’t see why the theoretical bottleneck is the problem at Britomart either. Not all train services need to go to Britomart anyhow (e.g. West – South direct), but I think Onehunga definitely does. When Kingdon St is closed down then we can look forward to transfers between different lines at Newmarket. Lets hope they have the wit to schedule services through Newmarket so that it is possible to transfer in a timely manner.

This is a really really bad step for Auckland’s rail system. As nothing ever runs exactly to time, I don’t think people will stand for having to transfer trains at Newmarket to get to Britomart. I had planned to use the line fairly frequently to get to Dressmart Onehunga, but now I face the prospect of having to walk 10 minutes to get to the Link Bus, catch a link bus across town to Newmarket and then catch a train to Onehunga. I think I’ll pass. I can bus into town from just up the road, so a Britomart-Onehunga link would have worked well for me.

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