This month I’m going to look at one of the fastest growing types of housing – retirement villages. There are often several different typologies in a retirement village, from detached villas to duplexes, independent apartments, serviced apartments through to rest home, hospital and dementia care – but let’s set that to one side.

The RCG Development Tracker shows that there are new retirement villages, and expansions to existing villages, happening around the country – even places that don’t have a lot of population growth.

Retirement villages

We can get a good gauge on how much retirement village development is going on by looking at building consents. As the chart below shows, the sector is expanding faster than it ever has before.*

Retirement village consents

Growth has really kicked up a notch in the last few years, with two major growth spurts in 2011-12 and 2014-15 and that growth being sustained. around 1,900. There are around 25,000 retirement village units in New Zealand, so we’re talking 7% or 8% growth a year.

With the major players all holding “land banks” for future expansion, and an ageing population, it’s a pretty safe bet we’ll be seeing more retirement villages in the future.

Auckland Housing Growth

May 2015 wasn’t a great month for building consents in Auckland – 651 new dwellings were approved, up from 611 in May 2014 but a smaller increase than we’ve been seeing recently. In the last 12 months, 8,195 homes were consented. That’s still a long way short of Auckland Plan targets or current demand.

Auckland Dwelling Consents

As noted previously, most of the growth in the last year or so has been in the higher-density dwellings: apartments, townhouses, retirement villages.

Long Train Running

Various projects have been added or updated in the Tracker, but perhaps of most interest is that I’ve added in the Wellington rail network (although I haven’t shown it all the way out to Wairarapa).  Rail in Wellington is a very different kettle of fish to Auckland – five lines winding their way through valleys, hills and tunnels, converging on a single station at the northern end of Wellington’s city centre.

Wellington rail lines

With trains a long-established part of the Wellington environment, and electric trains running on some lines since the 1930s, the city has about 12 million train passengers a year. Auckland has only recently overtaken this.

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36 comments

    1. Five-ish, assuming you’re counting the Hutt Valley line and the Wairarapa lines separately. This is rounded out by Melling, J’ville and Kapiti.

    2. They usually include the Melling line with the Hutt Valley line. J’ville, Kapiti and Wairarapa are separate.

      1. Any Wellingtonians know why the J’ville line doesn’t link to the Main line north (Porirua etc)?
        Would seem a no brainer if passenger trains ran via a J’ville “deviation” rather than as seperate services.

        1. The J’ville line is single track and goes through some pretty rugged terrain in parts, I don’t think it would be able to handle the required volumes of the Kapiti line as well as the J’ville/Khandallah residents. Duplicating it would be long and expensive with several single track tunnels on the line to consider – the upshot being that the line would still be steeper, have tighter curves, and take longer to get to Porirua onwards than the foreshore option.

        2. Wikipedia has a good history of how the current Johnsonville and Kapiti Lines came to be:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellington_and_Manawatu_Railway_Company
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawa_Flat_deviation

          Even when the deviation through Tawa was completed, though, the old (Johnsonville) line did still connect to the north, though. It was removed north of Johnsonville later due to a lack of any real use for it, and then later the Johnsonville-Tawa motorway (NZ’s first motorway, incidentally) was built over part of the old route.

          Unless you’re travelling from somewhere along the Johnsonville Line, going via J’ville would be way slower. Except for the tiny number of people wanting to do one-seat trips like, say, Khandallah to Porirua, there wouldn’t be much point. Wellington is deeply committed to express trains as it is, and in a sense having the line separated into two means that every train south of Tawa is, in a sense, running express to bypass the stations on the Johnsonville Line.

        3. Living part-way up the Johnsonville Line myself, many has been the time when I and my family could have benefitted from a train service linking through to Tawa or Porirua. Even one train an hour continuing through would have been useful. Galling, when one realises that the line used to exist and was thrown away.

          Such a Journey by public transport now means either a train into town then another train out, or a train to Johnsonville then a bus from there. The bus back from Porirua doesn’t run late evening services, so train is the only choice for a late return and the connection time off-peak between inbound Kapiti and Outbound Johnsonville is only 2 minutes with a fair chance of missing the hourly J’ville departure (or the last one) – i.e. fraught. Up until a couple of years ago, if you knew you were likely to miss the connection, you could get off the inbound Kapiti train at Kaiwharawhara and walk up to where I live in about 25 min. But just to make things as difficult as possible GWRC have closed Kaiwharwhara station permanently.

          I have suggested a number of times via various submission-opportunities that consideration be given to reinstating the rail link Johnsonville-Redwood alongside the motorway but such a prospect isn’t remotely on any radar and I’m not holding my breath. A far more pressing need is to extend all services southwards from the present dead-end terminus to the southern CBD, Newtown, Kilbirnie and Airport (i.e. along the “Corridor of National Significance” currently considered important enough to justify a motorway!). However this also isn’t on any radar either.

          What frustrates the few of us in Wellington that bother to think about these things, is that in spite of there being agreement at all levels that Wellington’s rail system is hugely beneficial to the areas that it serves, nobody seems able to take the mental step of considering the value in extending the benefits to areas not currenlty served. And the greatest potential benefits would not be just to those areas, but to all rail-served parts of the region through the improved connectivity achieved. We have 95% of an excellent regional rail system that is significantly hamstrung for want of the remaining 5%. Yet it is as if some fundamental law of the universe has dictated that the rail network we have now, great though it is, is all we can ever have.

          And for sure any further development would be expensive, but meanwhile the very people who ridicule the idea of expanding the rail network avidly push for $billions to be spent on more motorways. The money to do stuff is there!

        4. I agree, while I cant see heavy rail returning to te aro any time soon a more progressive political environment that advocated for light rail from the station thru the cbd would be amazing.

  1. Good to see Wellington train details added – just add in the missing Ngauranga station, and it’ll be perfect!

    And then Wairarapa & Capital Connection stations…

    1. Whoops, and thanks, Ngauranga will be in for next month. The long-distance lines may go in one day, but lots of other things I’d like to add before then…

  2. Extension of rail, not light rail, from the present Wellington Station at Thorndon to Wellington Airport at Miramar would provide Wellington with several benefits:
    – With at the most 4 stations between Thorndon and Miramar this would be by far the fastest route for an MP to get from Parliament Buildings to the Airport. It would be faster than a Ministerial BMW with motorcycle escort!
    -If the line was built cut-and-cover Waterloo Quay, Jervois Quay and Wakefield Street it could be left as a 2m high Tsunami defence wall for the Te Aro area. This wall will have to be built eventually but probably only after the next devastating flood event over New Zealand’s 2nd largest business area.
    -The service would enable a Wellington- Palmerston North Airports rail shuttle. This would be invaluable on those days when Wellington Airport is unusable due to fog or cross-winds.
    -A line through the downtown area would increase property prices throughout the central city area due to improved access from the northern suburbs.
    -It would cut traffic congestion in the central city and eliminate the main reason given for getting rid of the trolley buses.
    -Commuting to the city from Miramar and Haitaitai would be much faster.

    The logical extension for the Johnsonville line is not a connection to the Main Trunk Line, but a continuation along the ridge to Belmont. This area will logically see more housing in the future.

  3. Visual

    https://goo.gl/maps/HRB6L

    Posted this before, Use the P2G (Petone to Granada) roading project to run a high frequency Busline (east / west): Johnsonville – Waterloo train stations (blue) via Petone Foreshore and a new train station at Glenside that would act as an interchange with the Kapiti line (north / south.)

    Check out the link, it has a few more thoughts / ideas on it too including:
    Titahi Bay – Whitby Busline (Red) via Porirua East
    Paremata – Manor Park Busline (Green) via Whitby
    Whitby Bus interchange

    These projects would provide east / west bus connections to the existing north / south Kapiti and Hutt train lines.

    Other possible (secondary) Buslines (black):
    Churton Park – Newlands via Glenside station
    Tawa – Whitby via Aotea and Porirua station

    Also LRT (purple) run from a Thorndon (‘Stadium’) station through the CBD to Newtown (stage 1).

    The concept is using future roading projects to enhance Wgtn PT and integrating and building on the existing ‘RTN’ north / south train lines with high frequency east / west Buslines.

    How’s that for a “no-brainer”?

    Welcome thoughts / promote it / push it with decision makers.

    1. Further explanation from an email around the 3 major Buslines:

      The map (link above) shows what could be done to improve connectivity in the 5 centres of the Wellington region once the Petone to Grenada (P2G) road is built.

      There are:
      3 Buslines
      Glenside, a new train station (Kapiti line) and bus interchange
      Whitby, a new bus station interchange (Whitby Shopping Centre)

      Johnsonville to Hutt Central (Waterloo) Busline via Glenside station and Petone
      Connects the Western suburbs and Johnsonville with Hutt City and the Kapiti line (Porirua and Waikanae) by using the P2G highway and building a new train station at Glenside.
      Commuters to Wellington in Johnsonville’s north could also use Glenside station rather than a bus through Johnsonville’s busy town centre and Ngauranga Gorge.

      Titahi Bay to Whitby Busline via Porirua station and Porirua East
      Connects most of Porirua to itself and the Kapiti line north (Waikanae) and south (Wellington) at Porirua station and allows for a bus interchange to the Hutt Valley at Whitby.

      Paremata to Manor Park Busline via Whitby and Haywards Hill
      Connects the Kapiti line (Paremata station) with the Hutt line (Manor Park station) allowing much better connectivity from the Kapiti Coast to the Hutt Valley.
      The bus interchange at Whitby connects Porirua into the transfer.

      What is New?
      P2G highway – separate project
      SH58 (Haywards) is already being upgraded – separate project

      Glenside train station would be the only totally new piece of infrastructure.
      This would need to be designed well as it could become a key transfer AND commuting hub and would need to accommodate both bus and train.
      Whitby would need a relatively small but efficient bus station interchange at its shopping centre.

      Paremata and Manor Park train stations may need to be upgraded to handle a larger number of transfers and perhaps more Park and Ride at both stations.
      Porirua, Johnsonville, Petone and Waterloo train stations are all being upgraded / are of a reasonable standard to act as transfer hubs.

      Any Busline priority measures, especially around Porirua CBD, but also in Johnsonville, Petone and Hutt Central.

    2. Generation Zero had a Busline – Titahi Bay to Whitby in their FF Wellington plan.
      Mine is basically the same but with 2 added East – West Buslines that connect Johnsonville and the 2 major rail lines to each other.

      I also thought of the Congestion Free theory of using existing infrastructure and complementing it.

      I believe a train station at Glenside is something to be looked at – it does 2 things, first it allows the northern half of Johnsonville (Churton Park, but also perhaps parts of Newlands and Grenada) the option to commute into Wellington via the Kapiti line rather than being forced through the Ngarunga bottleneck or the slow Johnsonville train line – something that at peak time is desperately needed.
      It would be straight to Wellington station and less than 10mins from Glenside.

      Second it connects the Johnsonville line and Wellington’s Western suburbs to the Kapiti line north towards Porirua and beyond.
      Porirua being a major area of commerce and Kapiti a desirable recreational area.

      I think by linking Wellington’s Western and Northern suburbs to Petone and Hutt City you are beginning to make at least the basic part of the P2G stack up.

      1. What do you mean “why”?
        I don’t really know what you are asking.

        How many people are you moving?
        Hard to answer that question as the P2G project is not built and that is where the Busline would run.
        Just to be clear I’m referring to a Busline NOT BRT, I don’t envisage it having or even needing much if any ROW.
        What we are talking about are bus routes at high frequency, perhaps with limited stops and local ‘feeder’ connector buses.
        Certainly Johnsonville to Waterloo could be run on a 7 till 7, 7 day 15min service.

        How quickly?
        Well I’d say 10min Johnsonville station to Glenside station and another 10min to Petone station. Probably another 15-20min Petone to Waterloo via the foreshore and CBD depending on congestion.
        There are current upgrades being carried out to SH58 so unsure of time improvements / length of a Paremata to Manor Park Busline.
        Also there is basically no current PT that runs this service (connecting Upper Hutt to the Kapiti Coast and Mana) so hard to know numbers.
        Titahi Bay to Whitby Busline is a natural major east – west distributor / feeder to the the current north – south rail running through Porirua station.

        The “why”?
        Connectivity – simple.
        How do you currently get from anywhere to anywhere in metropolitan Wellington without back tracking to Wellington station or generally relying on two different currently incompatible modes?

        Looking at just the Jville – Waterloo Busline:
        Connecting the Western and Northern Wellington suburbs at Johnsonville to Glenside and the Kapiti line, Petone and the Melling / Hutt lines and Waterloo and the Hutt line seems like a pretty compelling reason to me.
        The Busline also servicing the commercial hub of Jackson St and the Petone Foreshore, Hutt Park and the Hutt City CBD for the total cost of ONE new train station interchange at Glenside.

        I’ll throw it back – “why not?”

    3. Some interesting ideas here, John.Keenan. We seriously lack Porirua-Hutt and Johnsonville-Hutt public transport at the moment, and while better frequencies, better connections and integrated fares would make this easier using existing rail, the fact remains that these journeys still require a trip into Wellington and out again.

      However, would buslines spring up to provide these services, even if the P2G link gets built?

      The Johnsonville-Porirua service is a precedent that, yes, they might:
      Back in the 1980’s the only PT north from Johnsoville (apart from long-distance buses) was about 3 ‘Railways Road-Services’ buses per week-day that ran Wellington-Ngaio-Johnsonville-Tawa-Porirua-Titahi Bay.
      When GWRC “Ridewell” took over provision of services, an hourly service was instituted between J’ville and Porirua using contracted taxi-vans! After a few years of this, the contract transferred to Mana Coach Services who provided hourly buses. Subsequently the frequency was stepped up to ½-hourly, which is what it is today. I.e a story of steady improvement!

      But Porirua-Hutt and Johnsonville-Hutt do not provide such an encouraging precedent. No bus line, in my memory, has ever provided Porirua-Hutt , even though it would be perfectly possible using existing roads. Johnsonville-Hutt I believe was tried with a tentative limited service some time in the last decade or two, but this didn’t grow and didn’t last. Possibly it was too limited and too infrequent for any sort of demand to build up. And today there is nothing.

      For a public transport service to become successful and mainstream requires commitment. And commitment requires financial backing and support, at least initially. And financial support requires local-government buy-in, which requires an approriate developmental strategy, which requires vision and motivation. And ultimately this requires a favourable and visioniary policy from central government. This as we all know is woefully lacking. If this changed and the purse-strings were opened for PT development rather than Roads of National’s Extravagance, I predict a flood of high-quality public transport developments INCLUDING RAIL SYSTEM EXPANSION.

      1. Thanks Dave B.

        I took a quick look at train journey times using Metlink, at 8am, 12pm and 5pm – Porirua to Petone via Wellington and reverse (in brackets) current for a Monday timetable:
        0800 – 37min (41min)
        1200 – 41min (50min)
        1700 – 39min (35min)

        So at present there is variation moving both ways and at time of day, anywhere from 35-50min journey during a weekday.
        With a Busline and interchange at Glenside after P2G I’d say times of 25min Porirua – Petone both ways 7am-7pm could be achieved.
        10-25min reductions in service time.

        Same method applied to Johnsonville – Petone via Wellington (reverse in brackets):

        0800 – 39min (41min)
        1200 – 48min (50min)
        1700 – 52min (40min)

        Variation – 39-50min
        With a Busline and interchange at Glenside after P2G I’d say times of 20min Johnsonville – Petone both ways 7am-7pm could be achieved.
        19-30min reductions in service time.

        Waikanae – Petone via Wellington (reverse in brackets):

        0800 – 1hr36min (1hr21min)
        1200 – 1hr19min (1hr28min)
        1700 – 1hr29min (1hr14min)

        Variation – 1hr14min-1hr36min
        With a Busline and interchange at Glenside after P2G I’d say times of 1hr Waikanae – Petone both ways 7am-7pm could be achieved.
        14-36min reductions in service time.

      2. jk, Dave B: You don’t have to go via Wellington to get between Jville and Petone. The quickest and cheapest way is via Ngauranga: 4 buses per hour (rising to 6 in the 2017 bus network) then 2 trains plus 2 buses an hour, with a journey time of 22-24 minutes. (Advertising and improving interchange facilities at Ngauranga would help improve this service, but GWRC don’t seem to be particularly interested.)

        So no “Busline” (whatever that might be) required!

        And the 97 bus runs between Porirua and Petone twice a day each way – a problem is the lack of intermediate traffic (which will also be lacking on P2G, which will also make car journeys faster and public transport therefore less competitive).

        So no P2G, with its 20 million tonnes of spoil, required, either!

        1. > The quickest and cheapest way is via Ngauranga

          That said, the return trip does involve crossing a four-lane 80km/h highway with no pedestrian signal. I mean, WCC could fix it relatively easily by adding crossings at the traffic lights, but in the meantime it’s like playing real-life Frogger for infinite stakes.

          Ngauranga should be a major regional centre, given its strategic location between Wellington, the Hutt, and Johnsonville/Tawa/Porirua: a bus-train interchange and a commercial centre. Instead, it’s a few big box shops and light-industrial buildings, cut up by impassable roads, impossible to navigate on foot.

        2. With Kaiwharawhara gone if you were serious about Ngauranga as some kind of train station / interchange wouldn’t you have to relocate it about a 1km south by the Caltex truck stop? That way it could be accessed by both Hutt and Kapiti lines.
          Also that would allow the Western suburb 40s buses to interchange with the Hutt and Newlands buses and the rail lines.
          But not sure if the expense would be worth it and the new location would just add time to transfers and be geographically sub optimal.

        3. Hello Mike,
          I think I defined what a Busline would be:

          “Just to be clear I’m referring to a Busline NOT BRT, I don’t envisage it having or even needing much if any ROW.
          What we are talking about are bus routes at high frequency, perhaps with limited stops and local ‘feeder’ connector buses.
          Certainly Johnsonville to Waterloo could be run on a 7 till 7, 7 day 15min service.”

          Johnsonville to Petone via Ngauranga when it isn’t peak and congested might be close to equal running times but what about the people in the northern and eastern parts of Johnsonville? Say half to a third of the Jville station catchment. Surely faster for them to go via P2G than get through Jville and down the Gorge.
          Also you didn’t seem to address times from Porirua or Waikanae… was that deliberate?
          How do they access this Ngauranga jewel?

          So when P2G IS built in some (hopefully limited) form as you know it will be (I think you’d have to concede regardless of NEED it’ll be a reality), you’d still rather run things through Ngauranga rather than add a train station / interchange at a greenfield site (Glenside) that connects all three (even four, Melling) of Wellington’s rail lines? At basically the cost of a station?

          It won’t be PT that moves that 20m fill, it will all be done for the private vehicle regardless.
          PT has an unintended opportunity to leverage off this project (P2G) and massively change how people can move between Hutt City and Petone – Johnsonville and the Western Suburbs – Porirua and the Kapiti Coast. Something that can’t be done by running 4-6 buses through the current disjointed Ngauranga station that gets bypassed by the NIMT line.

        4. Mike – you’re right. Bus from Johnsonville to Ngauranga then bus or train from Ngauranga to the Hutt would save going into Wellington and back. But only from J’ville. It wouldn’t help for journeys from other Johnsonville Line stations to Hutt. And as Stephen Davis points out, Ngauranga is currently a miserable wasteland thanks to the various highways cutting it up.

          Thanks for drawing attention to the No 97 bus. I didn’t know about this. It appears to be a circular route, Porirua-Johnsonville-Ngauranga-Petone-Lower Hutt-Haywards-Porirua (Whitereia) in the morning and the other way round in the evening. So you *can* get between Johnsonville/Porirua and the Hutt Valley! Well, sort of – once a day each way round the loop and obviously geared to linking the polytechs so it probably only runs in term-time, and an $8 cash-fare going via Haywards is pretty steep. I can’t see it catching on with that level of service.

        5. Once current / future regional State Highway projects are completed the 97 now gives us the basis for two higher frequency Buslines that are shorter and link with the rail lines:

          Paremata to Manor Park via a Whitby interchange (to Porirua station / Titahi Bay) and the upgraded SH58
          Johnsonville to Waterloo via P2G to Petone and Hutt CBD

          With integrated fares those two routes would do everything (and more) that the current 97 does but faster (with no duplication between bus and rail) and with a far superior / consistent level of service – a key for inducing latent demand.

        6. “Once current / future regional State Highway projects are completed” is many years away (if ever – the Roads Mania will have to come to an end sometime, just as the Railway Mania did). The Ngauranga interchange already exists (albeit with the need of more than a little TLC, as SD has pointed out), and through routes from north, east and west of Jville, with connections to Petone that I understated (there are 3 trains an hour – how could I forget Melling?) – providing now a PT frequency and speed of service between those areas that P2G (by 2024 at the earliest) would not improve.

          As for Porirua/Waikanae/Jville Line stations, the law of diminishing returns applies – better connections would be nice to have, but would there be sufficient demand for high-capacity PT in competition with the “complete” SH projects? Don’t forget that Transmission Gully alone, excluding all the other road projects, is predicted by NZTA to reduce Kapiti Line patronage by 25% compared with what it would have been.

          Your P2G-based bus routes are at least nine years away, by which time the world will be a different place, so why not focus on now and the immediate future, achieving much of what you propose many years earlier?

        7. Sure focus on the now but plan for the future.
          Debatable if things will be that different in 9 years, I doubt it but you’re entitled to that opinion.
          IF high freq PT is provided studies seem to be showing that people especially younger people who are driving less will use it so I guess we’ll see how gloomy the PT future is…

          I do find it interesting, how shall I say it “anti?” you are to a proposal that really would provide something Wellington doesn’t have (regional east-west PT connection) and won’t have if extremely minimal current tinkering is the future ‘vision.’
          Why can you not see / agree that using a State Highway project (P2G) to transform Wellington PT would be a good idea at essentially no cost?
          I’d like to understand that a little more?
          The funny thing from your last comment there is that you think these things are in opposition?!?
          Yeah great make Ngauranga more efficient NOW in terms of layout and service (anything would be an improvement, certainly low hanging fruit) but don’t put your head in the sand and try and say it is optimal – it really isn’t and never can be.

          As it stands now Ngauranga is not an interchange and you’d have to be a fairly die-hard PT user to use it in its current form. Money needs to be spent.
          Relocating Ngauranga south would improve its effectiveness but it’ll still be sub optimal. Money needs to be spent.

          So why not spend some money on even a basic station at Glenside on the Kapiti line that would pre-empt the P2G demand and serve the existing growth in the Northern and Eastern parts of Johnsonville?
          Extend the 54 (or selected but regular services of it) through Churton Park down Westchester Dr to Glenside station.
          Extend the 55 (or selected but regular services of it) up Mark Ave and over the motorway to Glenside station.
          Instant commuter patronage.
          Why? Congestion free – running against the traffic flows at peak to and from the city, avoiding the Gorge and Jville Hub and once at Glenside you would have a direct non stop train service to Wellington, c.8min

          There are so many more benefits and uses to a Glenside station that would only increase with P2G connectivity so trying to knock it because of what exists now or even really thinking about it as an equivalent / competitor to Ngauranga is in my opinion not logical.

          Diminishing returns..? So as I have said before connecting all three (four) rail lines to Wellington’s Western and Northern suburbs, Petone Foreshore and the Hutt CBD for the cost of ONE train station at Glenside would be deemed to have no cost benefit? Again we’ll have to disagree.

          Pushing for PT and showing the potentially huge benefits of it to the P2G project is not something that should be left to the future, it is something that should be planned for and talked about now because that project is.

        8. jk – what I’m anti is the NZTA-type thinking that you appear to be indulging in, that new roads (in this case P2G) must come before improved public transport: see NZTA’s position on the Basin, the Mt Vic tunnel, the Terrace tunnel, all of which apparently have to happen before the parallel improved PT can be put into place. It’s nonsense, of course: as a general rule investing in PT improves things for the majority of users, investing in roads tends to do the opposite. In this case many of the benefits of your proposals can be achieved now by improving the existing poor Ngauranga interchange, for small change in comparison with a road, or a new/relocated railway station.

          I can’t see how you think I’m knocking Glenside station because I’ve never mentioned it, but GWRC has considered both it and extending the successor to bus route 54 there, and rejected both proposals. I actually think it’s a good idea, if only to service buses to/from the proposed large Lincolnshire Farm housing development, situated in the most transit-barren place imaginable in an urban area.

          And the concept of P2G (9 years away at least) benefiting PT “at no cost” must surely be a joke?

        9. Ok so I think we are getting closer to consensus here.
          An issue I have with your points is that you think Ngauranga has more potential than it does and that it can do MOST of the things that Glenside / P2G will / can. It can’t, and certainly not without money.
          I’m not indulging in “NZTA thinking” merely being a realist in regards to future State Highway projects in the next 10 years.
          If you and a collection of others can agitate and prove the unworthiness of these projects and get most / all of the money spent on Wellington PT (a pipe dream) then hey sign me up now. I just don’t believe that will happen.

          Instead I think PT has a massive opportunity to ‘piggy back’ off private vehicle / freight projects, notably the P2G and I will advocate for that.

          Why is it a joke to think that a Johnsonville – Waterloo frequent bus service (Busline) wouldn’t benefit regional PT?
          Why wouldn’t this Busline essentially be free? The only dedicated infrastructure (except one station) and the operators required to run it are (or will be) in existence for other reasons?
          Why couldn’t all or most of the Glenside station cost (perhaps in 2 stages $1-3m?) be incorporated into NZTA’s P2G budget? Practically a ’rounding error’ in a $100m+ roading project.

          I’m genuinely asking these Qs as I don’t know:
          When was this report?
          Where can you read the findings?
          When they looked at Glenside did they factor in its strategic potential and synergy with a project like P2G?
          Was integrated ticketing considered?
          i.e. it doesn’t need to be zero sum car vs train vs bus, but combinations of 2 or 3.
          Drive to a Kapiti line station. Rail to Glenside. Bus to Hutt Valley. Bus Churton Park (Newlands) to Glenside. Rail to Wellington etc

          Seems amazing that a station in a greenfield area with virtually no PT links and potentially a catchment of 15-20,000 (Churton Park, parts of Newlands and Paparangi, Grenada and even Tawa with P2G) in between two targeted regional growth centres (Johnsonville and Tawa) wouldn’t be justified. Add to that the congestion benefits to Jville Hub of less commuter throughput etc
          But I guess it is a PT project so maybe not surprising…

  4. We’ve overtaken Wellington in train passengers? BOO-YA! Auckland is the Train City now… And all that that implies…

    1. Well, they’ve got about a third the population so it’s going to be many years before we overtake them on a per capita basis… but yup Auckland will be heading the way of a Train City especially once we get the CRL; a true metro network, as Patrick calls it. It’ll be easy to travel from place to place across the network, not just CBD-centric travel as for Wellington!

      1. Yes, @Early Commuter that is EXACTLY what running three east – west Buslines would allow Wellington to do using existing infrastructure and current / future State Highway projects in the region.

        “It’ll be easy to travel from place to place across the network, not just CBD-centric travel as for Wellington!”

      2. Will be much more of a train city than Wellington if AT delivers on their ideas for a fairly extensive tram network. Auckland will be quite a different city in 10 years with the CRL, trams and assuming a change of government planning for a rail link across to the shore well under way.

    2. Per-corridor, Auckland’s rail routes are probably on a par with Wellintgon’s.

      Wellington has supplied most of its available corridors with rail already (except for the CBD southwards).

      Auckland has many suburban corridors NOT SERVED BY RAIL, and these might as well not exist as far as rail patronage is concerned.

      For Auckland’s rail usage to truly reflect the population of the city requires MORE OF THE CITY TO BE SERVED BY RAIL.

      Otherwise, and even if AK’s rail-ridership soars, rail will remain a niche-mode restricted to the limited areas that it serves.

      WE NEED MORE RAIL! – If anyone from government is remotely listening.

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