As the CRL inches closer to reality we’re bound to see a lot more of the general public start to get involved and as such discussion about it is only likely to intensify. This isn’t a bad thing as the more people that learn about the massively positive benefits the project brings the more support the project will have. Penny Hulse has come up with an idea to help push the discussion along which has been highlighted by Metro Magazine.
Deputy mayor Penny Hulse wants to paint some lines on Albert St. And put up some signs. Why? Because she wants to show people where the City Rail Link will go. Railway lines, geddit?
Do that, she argues, and the abstract economic burden of our proposed underground railway will become a really-happening-now project, a talking point, a springboard for the imagination. A mechanism for us to start thinking seriously about what the downtown city might become when tens of thousands of workers and shoppers and students spill every day out of a subway station underneath the intersection of Albert and Victoria streets.
It’s a brilliant idea. Cheap and powerful. They could build on it, too. As the work starts — next year is likely, and it will be disruptive cut-and-cover, not a tunnel — how about they turn it into an “imagine Auckland” project? Use the walls they will put up to keep us out as a giant, ongoing canvas on which people can post their ideas for the city — in words, in pictures, hell, in 3-D installations. Aucklander Stuart Houghton has been posting his “100 ideas for a better Auckland”, a set of beautifully whimsical illustrations, at 100daysproject.co.nz (one of them is shown above), and they’re a terrific provocation. Put some of them up and invite everyone to contribute more.
Penny Hulse wants to lay down the painted tracks because she wants to generate more public engagement with the changing city. She wants us to feel part of what the council is up to. But guess what? She says she can’t get people at council to support her idea. Why not?
I think painting some tracks down Albert St is a great idea but why stop there.
London has long considered the building of full sized mock ups of tube stations a crucial part of the design process to ensure they get the stations right.
Now with just two underground stations – Aotea and K Rd – perhaps AT should do a similar exercise, firstly to ensure they get the design right but if they were also in a publicly accessible location such as AT’s Bledisloe carpark for the Aotea one, they could also be a great tool for further public engagement.
However both of these ideas are focused centrally and unfortunately don’t help address the incorrect assumption of some that the CRL is just about benefits to the CBD. More needs to be done by AT to highlight the benefits the CRL provides to the region and it is something highlighted in the latest newsletter from the AA. They note:
Perhaps for the first time, chinks in the broad support for the City Rail Link (CRL) are also visible. Many Auckland Members believe that the project will only benefit a small proportion of the population (those who live or work in the central city).
Awareness of the network-wide benefits that the CRL could offer is minimal – instead, it is commonly assumed that the project is only about intra-CBD travel.
As a result, support for the project is surprisingly low: only one-third of Auckland Members believe investment in the CRL would be money well spent.
And in their recommendations they say AT needs to de-mystify the CRL
At present, Auckland’s flagship project is poorly understood, and risks becoming the focal point for public concerns about cost.
Politicisation of the CRL has stood in the way of a conversation about its substance.
Much more needs to be done to develop public understanding of what the project is, and how it could benefit all of Auckland.
Again, the story needs to be told in terms of concrete outcomes – economic growth, travel time savings, and de-congestion.
I think the AA are absolutely correct with this and importantly they’re not saying no to the project but just that more information is needed so the public better understand the need for it.
In my view just having a few open days or putting up some posters isn’t likely to be effective so what are some ideas for getting more public engagement in other parts of Auckland?
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Maps showing how CRL will bring many more locations within a 30 min commute of work would be great. You could show before and after maps of access to a whole variety of locations, not just city centre ones.
Most of the stated benefits of CRL are too airy-fairy for many to get. Maps like what I’ve described above would make the benefits much more concrete and understandable.
They should make a clean cut from the tarnished CRL ‘brand’ and start calling it what it actually is, something like ‘Regional Auckland Metro Rail” (or a snappier alternative). Don’t sell it as a two billion dollar CBD tunnel with two stations, sell it as a two billion dollar metro system with four lines and 40 stations serving 3/4 of metropolitan Auckland, with trains running every five or ten minutes to every station between Swanson, Onehunga, Manukau and Papakura.
Did NZTA sell the Waterview connection as the means to drive from Owairaka to Waterview? Of course not, they spend far more time talking about completing the motorway system, creating an efficient network and delivering a western bypass from Manukau to Albany.
AT seem so intent on hiding all the benefits and potential from the public, so risk averse as to shoot themselves in the foot. Sell the damned thing FFS! get the public excited, have them banging on the beehive door saying hurry up and get on with it. In my experience the only people against the CRL are those that have a mistaken understanding of what it does, or rather doesn’t, do. Those that do understand can clearly see it is the most efficient spend of transport funds possible in the city. That is squarely ATs fault in terms of marketing.
Give it a new name, them stick signs and billboards out next to main roads and motorways showing the travel time and frequency to various places. Put one by SH1 in Manurewa with the travel time to Silvia Park and Aotea, one near Orakei with the time to Eden Park, one in Mt Albert with the time to Henderson and Aotea, one in Howick village with the combined bus and train time to the city centre etc. Hell stick one up in every neighborhood within ten minutes of a rail station.
…and give it a new brand, a regional, metro branding.
Nick agree with your idea of a rebrand and electronic signs showing “Times to X and Y from here”.
I’d go a bit further and add a second set of information – to the “Time to X and Y from here via PT.” and also show “Improvement to X & Y from here when CRL (or whatever its new brand name is) opens”.
That way people can see that maybe the current system ain’t so bad for their needs right now, so they could use it now.
And they can also see how much better again it will be once CRL completes.
Choosing the X & Y for each location is obviously critical, but I’m sure census data (travel to work) will help pick those for any location to have the most meaning to locals.
You could also try some ads like “Once the CRL opens, you’d be at work (or home) already”.
Who cares if its not quite 100% true – the main message is that CRL will save you time will stick. How much, like the time savings on any motorway project are always elusive but people are sold it on the promise not the reality.
We also need to pick up the “completing the network” idea that NZTA used for Waterview, after all CRL is doing exactly what was proposed back in the 1920s.
Nick + 1^infinity
Wonderful comment Nick and worth repeating a few thousand times to AT: “sell it as a two billion dollar metro system with four lines and 40 stations serving 3/4 of metropolitan Auckland, with trains running every five or ten minutes to every station between Swanson, Onehunga, Manukau and Papakura.”
C’mon AA, AC and AT – get this message and sell it. Maybe one day even Granny Herald and Grandpa Wood will get it.
Yup, yet even this is an understatement. As it will completely transform Auckland’s idea of itself and its place in the global competition among cities. It is the one transformative project available, all others are incremental. It adds a whole new layer of movement possibility, spatial fit, and lifestyle potential to the city that can currently only be glimpsed at, and all without reducing existing systems and activities one jot.
It is the first truly place changing opportunity the city has since the Harbour Bridge. Previous bold moves were all extremely destructive, the m’ways involved the removal of the tram network the vandalism and severance of huge areas of the inner suburbs, and the permanent degradation of the economic basis of the Central City.
Definitely a smart new catchy name, and not a bunch of bureaucratic initials which is the result of running things by a city council committee
“They should make a clean cut from the tarnished CRL ‘brand’ and start calling it what it actually is, something like ‘Regional Auckland Metro Rail” (or a snappier alternative).”
Metrolink! A fresh new brand to break with the substandard disappointing always late grim image of our PT past… oh wait, hang on, never mind
Put installations at outlying stations showing post CRL frequency to get those people excited about the potential. Also – what were the results of the CRL slogan comp?
Perhaps instead of surveying its members about the CRL, and then publishing articles white-anting the project, AA should consider educating them about the benefits of CRL.
Can also do what Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse suggested and paint rail lines down Albert Street to mark where the CRL goes for that part of the journey.
Otherwise adverts and lots of them but not like the one for the West Auckland Bus Network consultation as that was more creepy than Santa on Queen Street.
Posters at every single rail station on the network showing time savings and future options would assist as well.
And as noted above some 3D models in Britomart, Panmure, Manukau, Papakura, New Lynn and Newmarket to show people as we are visual creatures
Didn’t you read the start of the post Ben? I started with Penny’s suggestion
Actually no – started half way down as I was distracted with the Fire Place debate.
Ah well consider it as me support Penny’s idea then even if I repeated what you said 😀
I think it is the perfect opportunity to engage youth in designing the communication material.
If a seven year old can explain the benefits, I’m sure the adults/careers involved with them will get the message as well.
Construct a mock up of Aotea on the empty site/car park at the cnr of Albert St and Victoria St
No need to mock up the station itself, most folks have at least had a look at britomart and know what an underground station looks like. But definitely mock up the station *entrances*, with signs saying “this is whee you could catch a train to… ” and how long it would be to various stations on the network.
Agree signs all over region, not just CBD (when will these agencies learn?)
Include frequency, not just travel time.
As much as I want this project to start now, isn’t it years away? (National got back in), and it’s too much money for two stations, should be three.
JeffT
1. Tender doc for stage 1 is now out so is underway.
2. It isn’t just two or three stations; but nothing short of a whole Metro for Auckland. There is no comparable city on this planet that can get a 90km, 40 station station Metro covering 3/4 of the city for the cost of a 3.4km tunnel, one cut and cover station, one mined station, and one trench station.
Without this we have the little commuter train network as it is currently, but bursting at the seems and choking off growth and agglomeration economies because it can’t increase in frequency or capacity for its key routes. With this short link we suddenly have a much higher capacity, higher frequency, through-routing Metro system.
As different as Day and Night; but not understood even by many working on it, it seems.
As usual Patrick is totally incorrect in his summation of the network.
Just because you have a Western, Eastern and Southern line does not mean 3/4 of the city is covered by the train network! The Eastern line hardly reaches into East Auckland and the Western/Southern lines do not serve all of West and South Auckland. Digging a 2km tunnel is not going to open up the network to 3/4 of the city.
Of course there are many positives to completing the CRL loop but you can see why people are against this when you read Patricks posts waxing lyrical and over-selling the CRL to the point that it induces vomit.
Nick R has made an excellent post on how to sell the CRL. We need more of the rational approach taken by Nick and less of the over-hyped hysteria being peddled by Patrick.
Well matthew you seem to misunderstand how Rapid Transit systems work in many cities. Not everywhere is lucky enough, like central Paris, to have a dense network of underground stations and lines that enable a very high walk-up catchment for those lucky enough to live in those privileged areas. More often these services do not pass by everyones front door but rather are at the top the hierarchy of services where their catchment is expanded by other more local systems such as buses and cycleways, as well as kiss n ride and park n ride too.
In fact some argue that Paris Metro stops so frequently that it barely qualifies as Rapid; the conflict between coverage and speed is always there. And we are now starting to see how people even in the appallingly planned transit-less South East Auckland are accessing our improving RTN by transfer at Panmure, soon there will be more opportunity to do this at Otahuhu too. In the near term this is how Auckland Transport are expanding the reach of the core of the Network.
Your comment is clear description of the problem facing communication of this project; it’s transformational and therefore very very hard for most to imagine how much change it will bring. Remember those behind the promotion, design, and construction of the Harbour bridge were terrified too few would use it. They bought off the competing ferries, they underscaled it, striped it of all modes bar one. Yet almost immediately had to double it! This is a defining feature of transformational projects and why incremental ones are easier to get across the line.
However you can’t be unaware that we do advocate an expansion of Rapid Network throughout more of the city as shown in our CFN Network, and of which the City Rail Link is an essential next step.
As with the bridge I am sure CRL will also prove to have been under designed to cope with the capacity it will unleash. The stations will be limited to 6-car trains. In Switzerland trains are routinely run as 14-car double deckers. Pity the stations aren’t being future-proofed for longer platforms.
Your last sentence sums it up well Patrick. The CRL is a piece of the puzzle, it’s part of a greater project.
In itself the CRL is no more transitional than the building of Britomart station that brought trains into downtown Auckland. Both are part of a larger transformation into what I hope will be a multi modal transport network.
We need to see the CRL for what it is, part of a greater movement, because on it’s own it is not going to transform the city.
Well we’re gonna have to agree to disagree on this. On what the word transformational means and why this isn’t just a couple of kms of track and a couple of stations. Frankly if that is all it is then i would have to agree with its critics as being a poor deal; much cheaper to add 3.4kms to the network out at the edge somewhere if that’s all it delivers.
Umm Matthew, I also said the 3/4 of Auckland figure in my comment above. That’s based on the amount of residents within ten or so minutes on a feeder bus to a station. With the AMETI works underway that includes all of Howick and Botany, plus more or less all of south and west Auckland. The New Network is designed to connect everyone in to rail, the CRL is the key piece that makes the whole deal work. Remember even in London more people catch a bus to the tube than walk.
No argument on the benefits. Just wish they’d left Newton in.
Perhaps by accident the demand for better public transport seems to be developing momentum. Last week I spoke to the last person on earth that I thought would catch the train. But he had left the Cayenne back in the Eastern Suburbs and was espousing how he could use his lap top on the train and how much he had saved by not having to park in the city. Sooner rather than later the tide for improved public transport will simply overwhelm National and much of it will come from their own supporters. Based on early experience the Minister for Roads and Bridges won’t get it – he’ll be searching for ways that the majority who can’t afford driverless cars won’t run into those who can.
I agree with comments that painting a few lines on the road is to fall into the trap of explaining what the CRL is (its physical route) rather than how it will benefit the region (i.e. why the average suburban dweller should care). For example our Local Board recently received a letter complaining that “no-one in Mount Albert would benefit from the CRL” – because the writer was unaware that travel times to many work places and entertainment facilities in the central city would be halved.
The PR around the CRL has been an appalling botch from day one but despite regular reminders nothing much changes. For example when they recently recast the costings I begged them (literally) to include two sets of numbers (i.e. the $2.09 billion in current dollars alongside the $2.43 billion in 2022 dollars). Almost everyone I speak to assumes that the “discounted” figure constantly quoted will surely be subject to inflation and have no inkling that a 15% inflationary allowance has already been included.
“No-one in Mt Albert will benefit …” How I wish I had a few spare million to buy up land along the Western line. I guess people on the Shore also could not have begun to imagine the effect the bridge would have on their land value back in the 50s.
Mt Albert will be a wonderful, dense, liveable precinct a few minutes from all the buzz of the inner city and waterfront with 5-minute frequencies not only downtown but in every direction, including, eventually, the airport.
2nd comment – responding to The Real Matthew. Even before the Onehunga line was re-opened it was calculated that two thirds of Aucklanders were already living within 5km of a rail station (think feeder buses). Since then we have had the advent of the Northern Busway (which functions very like part of the rail network) so the figure of 75% is about right for the proportion of Aucklanders with access to mass transit. Still much work to do on integration of bus and rail but we have the bones of a decent PT system accessible by most Aucklanders. And CRL is key to that as it allows rail service frequencies to be doubled on the whole network – even benefiting those who have no need or intention to go anywhere near the inner city.
Engagement is about winning hearts and minds. The Get on board with Jerome campaign is more the direction we should head to connect with people. Like large infrastructure projects the world over, the CRL on its own is a hard sell and I can’t see how a bit of paint will really excite people, in fact it might have some negative impact.
AT need a really creative ad agency to measurably improve PTs place in Auckland’s culture. Drop the stuff explaining about new trains or whatever. Just show real Aucklanders using all parts of the system. Iggy Pop’s I am the passenger would of course be the perfect soundtrack.
Paint where the route goes is pretty pointless but big signs where the station entrances will be would be useful for all those thousands of future users in the city. But yes it’s the full network effect that needs communicating, so signs up at every station explaining future frequencies, times, and direct destinations would also help.
Mock up station and train. Plant somewhere public for 8 months and sell the frequency.
See Crossrail and now son of Crossrail in London.
How can a loop around the cbd of auckland city be any thing more than intra transport for people in the cbd?
How can this project benefit anyone else than the few people who still work and live in the cbd?
Mostly these people are lawyers with company cars and secure car parks as part of their job
This project is similar to the sydney mono rail. Which was canned. Because only a few tourist took it.
If ever there was a waste of money with no benefit to public this has to be it
pffft.
Phillip we know neither the Council nor AT have been much good at explaining the CRL but you could make a little effort to find out about it before you make such definite pronouncements.
The CRL is not a loop, is most certainly not a closed system like the silly and unlamented Sydney monorail, but rather is the connection between currently separated parts of the existing rail system. It will improve the frequency, reliability, and speed of every journey on all parts of the network; it is about Papakura, Swanson and Panmure as much as it is about the city. It will double the capacity of the network as well as its reach into the heart of the densest concentration of employees and inhabitants in the country.
It turns Auckland’s current in-and-out commuter rail into a slick little through-routing Metro. It will transform the city, way beyond the small area where the work actually takes place.
Phillip. Not sure which part of town you live (maybe not AKL) but would it be fair to say most of us take it for granted yet benefit quite a lot from the Central Motorway Junction when travelling across the city? The CRL is nothing more that a traffic jam free public transport version of the same. Important or not?
North, South, East or West, travel by train, ferry, NEX, Airbus or local bus, the CRL is the key to unlocking many of the city’s transport problems. Motorists should even get a break too once it is built.
I take your point on defunct circular tourist rides, whether monorails (Sydney) or trams (Wynyard), but Sydney does in fact have a very successful inner city rail loop.