Today is a pretty exciting day for Auckland, with the start of the Rugby World Cup and what promises to be a pretty giant party celebrating the start of the tournament.
All week the city has had this “building up” feeling, getting busier and busier by the day and feeling more and more festive. It’s been really awesome to be in town every day this week and soak it all up. I’m certainly looking forward to seeing what the “vibe” of Auckland is like over the next month and a half – as we experience the huge number of international visitors, as we have so much of the world’s focus on us, as (hopefully) the All Blacks march towards finally winning back the World Cup.
In the end, I think the greatest legacy of the World Cup has already happened, and that is the way the city looks at the moment. So many projects that probably sat in the “maybe some day” basket have actually happened: the public getting back Queens Wharf, the various shared spaces around downtown, something of an integrated ticketing system, the upgrade of Kingsland Station and modernisation of our rail signalling systems, Wynyard Quarter, the Art Gallery refurbishment, the list goes on and on.
Let’s just enjoy the day, as a great day for Auckland.
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The best thing has been the attitude change of people. Everyone is now positive about Auckland. Amazing when you think last year we were involved in a divisive election and the city’s future was so uncertain. I hope we can channel is this new found positivity into the future and usher in a golden age for the city.
Lots of good stuff happening in the CBD, but not much elsewhere. Under Bob Harvey Waitakere got new town centre developments in Henderson and New Lynn, Trusts Stadium, Waitakere Film Studios, 4 new libraries and new rail stations (x5). Now I am struggling to think of anything planned in teh next 5 years (velodrome?? whats happening). Interested to know what the Manakau, North Shore and Rodney people think. Maybe its because we had so much built out West in teh last ten years but it seems like public investment in facilities are focussed on Auckland Central now.
seems like the auckland transport system particularly the train services has failed miserably!