Our good friend and director of Generation Zero, Sudhvir Singh wrote a fantastic op-ed for the Herald the other day on the City Rail Link. It was intended to be printed on Wednesday when councillors voted on whether to delay the project – which thankfully they didn’t – however the Herald ended up running it on Friday. I’ve included a few images from AT’s CRL page.
As Auckland councillors have been voting on a budget for our city, they must be commended for their continued support for the City Rail Link (CRL), a game-changing piece of infrastructure that will reduce traffic, revitalise suburban town centres and unlock Auckland’s potential.
A 3km rail tunnel connecting Britomart with the rail network at Mt Eden, the CRL will link the three disparate limbs of Auckland’s rail network into a coherent whole. It will serve motorists just as well as rail commuters, and benefit the suburbs just as much as the city centre.
Auckland already has a 100km rail network. While rail usage is growing at over 15 per cent year on year, as long as the network finishes in a dead end at Britomart, Aucklanders will only ever be offered services on an infrequent timetable.
The CRL will change all this: by breaking the bottleneck at Britomart, Aucklanders will have access to trains running at five-minute frequencies.
Any new rail lines such as the proposed airport and North Shore lines are not possible without the CRL. This is therefore the foundational project that Auckland needs to develop a true “metro” public transport system, like those seen in all the world’s most liveable cities. It’s at the core of the Congestion-Free Network, a plan laid out by Generation Zero and Transport Blog to address Auckland’s lack of public transport and show how major improvements are easily affordable within the current budget.
Investment in the CRL will not mean that Auckland motorists’ concerns are neglected. Quite the opposite: international transport system research shows that widening roads is not the cure for traffic congestion. By encouraging more people to drive and failing to provide transport choice, heavy investment in roads only adds to traffic problems. Investment in rail takes large numbers of people off the road and reduces carbon pollution.
What is more, the CRL will not see suburban development sacrificed in favour of city centre development. The best way to spur renewed investment and development in our suburban centres is to give people access to frequent, quality public transport and watch the private investment that follows. Britomart’s transformation since the opening of the rail station is an example of this – the CRL will be the impetus for similar town centre upgrades across Auckland.
In the short term, residents of West Auckland will arguably benefit the most from the CRL. Travel times by train from the west will be halved, in effect bringing this entire side of Auckland closer to the city. This represents an unrivalled opportunity for the west to prosper, particularly if a mix of affordable housing choices is offered near existing stations.
Let’s also stick to the facts when it comes to funding: the CRL is not one of the factors putting pressure on the council’s budget and leading to calls for motorway tolls and rate rises. Despite the alarmism promoted by its detractors, funding of the CRL will not influence rates in the city until it’s open.
As a piece of capital investment, it is funded by a combination of development contributions and debt. This is separate from the spending that our rates fund. Those who suggest that today’s funding for libraries and community services is to be sacrificed for tomorrow’s funding of the CRL are peddling falsehoods.
The Government has not had the foresight to plan a single piece of public transport infrastructure in the country’s biggest city during its six years in office. Instead, it has a myopic obsession with roading that sees it spend Auckland’s share of national transport funding exclusively on motorways. The council’s response needs to be to balance the transport budget with investment in public transport.
Auckland needs its rail link. Now is the time for the council to show leadership and not delay its completion.
Good work Sudhvir
We’re working with Generation Zero to try and come up with some more creative ways to highlight the need and the benefits of the CRL. We have already have one of these done which we will look to launch soon. If you also have a good idea on how we can help better explain the project then let us know.
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I just did in two sets of podcasts over my end.
The feedback I constantly get (from both Left and Right (yes Right Wingers do want the CRL as they know it is not a Left Right issue) is they want clear information on capacity and frequency, NOT airy fairy urban renewal stuff.
Here I’ll pull a piece from my Talking Auckland feedback page
The problem is that it is being sold wrong – if one pointed out that it was increasing the capacity of the rail network, then it would be much easier. Instead they are talking far too much about urban regeneration and all that fluffy stuff.
Makes me wonder if there is a guilty streak for failing to think ahead…
So that is where the crux lies – capacity and frequency (and yes you can get the North Shore and Howick included as well)
Agreed. A 100% increase in rail capacity is hard to misunderstand. As is a 15 minute time saving, and trains every 5 minutes.
I was looking at your analysis posts on the CRL and while they do a good job explaining things if you are willing to read through them all, I think there is scope for a refresh. I think it could be useful to have a one page summary type article which goes over all the key points of why we need the CRL and is designed for people who aren’t regular blog readers and don’t understand transport issues. Maybe it could even have its own site and a catchy domain name and be promoted to the public.
I also think there is room for a CRL myths busted article going over some of the myths we keep hearing about the CRL (It’s a ‘loop’, only benefits people who live in the city, too expensive for Auckland to afford, will be a white elephant.. etc).
Yep we’ve got some fresh ideas to explain it better. Will be very visual too rather than lots of words
Agree on the Myths thing. Just have a look at the comments on the Herald website. You have to address even the “dumb” stuff like “I never go into the CBD” and “We need airport/Shore rail first” .
Sudhvir, you write, “As a piece of capital investment, it is funded by a combination of development contributions and debt. This is separate from the spending that our rates fund. Those who suggest that today’s funding for libraries and community services is to be sacrificed for tomorrow’s funding of the CRL are peddling falsehoods.”
How can this be so? If council is spending money on paying interest and principal on debt to pay for the CRL, then how is that not going to be a charge to ratepayers? And you can only spend money once, so if it goes into funding the CRL it comes out of funding something else. Making these decisions is part of what we pay the Council to do.
The savings on travel times for West and South Auckland are plenty good enough to justify the CRL on their own merit, they really are outstanding.
The CRL does not benefit Howick and North Shore, but then it seems unfair on the project to burden it with that expectation. As such, although the CRL looks to make good economic sense, it’s only half of what is needed. AT now needs to show how it plans to deliver reduced travel times and 5-minute frequencies from urban centres on the North Shore and Howick as well and in the same timeframe. It’s this missing bit that is causing so much aggravation.
Yeah, the people living on the Shore and working on the rail network don’t benefit at all, and those living in Howick who will see more than a doubling in frequency at their connection to the rail network don’t benefit at all.
Dave the people on the Shore and Howick will benefit from the CRL in two ways:
1. They can use the vastly improved rail network themselves particularly through bus transfers, as they already do; and related improvements to the Northern Busway [Shore] and the next phase of AMETI {Pakuranga, Botany, Howick] will make this even better.
2. Through the continued decongestion outcomes that improvements to the Rapid Transit Network have already shown to achieve. Before the CRL opens there will be at least another 10 million annual rail trips to over 20 million, and the CRL will enable that to be doubled again to over 40 million. It will take cars off all roads, the major beneficiaries of this project are car and truck users. Especially the later; truckies and tradies who have no option but to drive. And therefore anyone who needs a tradie or anyone who relies on anything delivered. That is everyone.
You missed a few other ways they benefit.
As more people can easily access the city it helps encourage more businesses to locate there. More jobs in the city means more for residents of the Shore/Howick to apply for. This is also good for them as jobs in the city tend to be better paid.
By making the PT system more attractive and efficient which means their rates get spent more efficiently (not a direct benefit obviously).
CRL get cars off the motoway, leaving motoway capacity for people who live far away from train station. Everybody is winners.
Yes leave the m’ways for the truckies and tradies, and anyone who needs or really wants to drive, while giving everybody who might like to avoid it good quality options to do so, for more trips, more often…..
I’m a keen driver, cyclist and train user and I approve this message.
I support the CRL but some of those calculations appear misleading. Are the ‘before CRL’ calculations based on pre-electrification and the ‘after CRL’ based on post-electrification? Also according to Google maps, it would take 40mins to get from the New Lynn interchange to Aotea Square by bus, although it would obviously take longer at peak times.
I don’t think the figures will change much pre or post electrification for those figures as the timetable changes are not in place yet for electrification and won’t be until later next year.
So its hard to know how much the electrification trips times will reduce. Not least as the inner West stations are quite close together so the time savings may not be as great as you think they will be.
I believe these numbers assume you make a train trip to Britomart and a walk to your final destination from there.
Sometimes a bus direct may be quicker, but as you yourself say it won’t be consistently quicker – until the whole bus route from New Lynn to Aotea is protected by bus lanes.
And it may be easier/quicker to alight at Grafton and walk a mostly flat route along Park Rd and over Grafton Bridge to most K’Rd locations instead of a walk up the hill from Britomart to K’Rd.
And there is also the City Link bus – which is free to Hop card users which goes up to K’Rd as well but also has inconsistent trip times too sometimes.
Walking to Aotea is probably a 50/50 proposition from either Grafton or Britomart now – a longer walk from Grafton but you don’t have that Newmarket shuffle and Vector dog leg to worry about with adds a good 10+ minutes to your trip, which more than offsets the longer walk from Grafton.
But these CRL trips time figures are “now” figures pretty much and are not going to suffer from congestion delays like buses do so they will be pretty accurate in the future too and are meaningful comparisons as what CRL means for the Western Line.
The fastest way to get from Avondale/New Lynn and anywhere between to Britomart after the CRL is open, will be by train.
That is the best train plan I have seen yet for the proposed CRL. I like that one.
Yes, it’s not bad, although wouldn’t you switch the southern ends of the blue and purple lines on the assumption that Otahuhu can take a higher number of trains per hour than Onehunga? Either that or there’s a considerable upgrade to the O-Line in order to be able to handle 6tph? It would at least need double tracked passing points even for 4tph. Mind you that’s a lot of traffic through the Westfield Junction too: every Eastern, Southern, and west/south train, plus increasing numbers of freighters, especially from Tauranga port.
The problem with that running pattern is that you’ve got 50% more services on the NM-Otahuhu section than through the CRL where demand is so much greater. Assuming that each line is running 6TPH then that means 12 TPH [a train every 5 mins] on western, in CRL, and Puhinui-Middlemore. But 18THP Otahuhu-Newmarket [one nearly every 3 mins]and these are not the highest demand stations. Plus what looks like some sort of limited stops peak service on the Eastern to Pukekohe.
What’s not often mentioned is how speedy the the Southern to the city gets via Grafton and without Newton Station, how good that service pattern will be for getting to the increasingly important Grafton destinations like the new campus and for staff going between Auckland and Middlemore hospitals… Older town centres on the Southern like Papatoetoe could certainly be redeveloped with medium rise more affordable apartments based on the likely learning/working commute but that would still have considerable local benefits with ground floor retail, cafe, and leisure opportunities.
We need a city development agency.
Does the Henderson line(purple) even need to go all the way to Otahuhu? Why can’t it just simply terminate at Newmarket where there will be a spare platform upon CRL completion.
I think you’re getting close to what the issue is with this pattern; why not take the same approach to the other end of this route and only take it to Mt Eden? A little back and forth shuttle running Mt. Eden-Grafton-NM. Really high frequency, with just two trains!
Then we could have 8, 10, 12, tph plus on every other line for mega freqency and legibility, but a lot of transferring at Mt E and NM…. Limited by whatever we spend to make Onehunga work.
Here’s the proposed Mt Eden station plan, showing the relationship between the two platforms for transfers:
Well even better. If one does not wish to transfer at Mt Eden for Newmarket, they could simply stay aboard and transfer after doing the CRL on the blue line.
One interesting thing about this running pattern, east-west shuttle aside, is that it breaks the network into two very separate lines in a qualitative sense.
The Southern/Eastern line will all be running on higher quality faster track with wider spaced stations with fewer level crossings, as the Western in general is windier slower track with closer stops. But also only the Western trains have to contend with the slow trundle round the back of Vector Arena and the single track Onehunga Line [although that’ll have to be upgraded].
Having said that the new Southern does have to mix it with the growing freight traffic both to the AK port on the Eastern, and Tauranga on the Main Trunk.
But it does look like quite a sensible division in terms of predictability and reliability.
I wonder whether i can help spread this discussion to the Auckland Architecture Associations ~900 strong subscribership.
Currently i am organising the AAA Visionary Architecture Awards, but once this is over my time may free up.
This should be something the AAA membership is interested in, especially from the perspective of the effects the CRL will have on Aucklands built environment – public infrastructural investment commitment leading to private development, multi-modal streets and how this may change the active edges of buildings, etc.
If this seems helpful, flick me an email or we could meet up for a chat