On Friday City Rail Link released the final designs for stations as well as the formal names for the stations
City Rail Link Ltd (CRL Ltd), in partnership with Auckland Transport (AT), has announced details of the proposed te reo Māori names for City Rail Link (CRL) stations.
The station names are: Maungawhau (Mt Eden), Karanga a Hape (Karangahape), Te Wai Horotiu (Aotea) and Waitematā (Britomart).
Details of the names coincides with the release by CRL Ltd of the striking final design renders (drawings) for the Maungawhau, Karanga a Hape and Te Wai Horotiu Stations. The names and renders together celebrate the project’s strong links to mana whenua history and storytelling and more accurately reflect the stations’ geographic locations.
“The names and the designs are important developments for the city and acknowledge the unique cultural and historic heritage of Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland,” says Dr Sean Sweeney, CRL Ltd’s Chief Executive.
The names were gifted by CRL Ltd’s Mana Whenua Forum and honour the long-standing partnership the Forum’s eight iwi have had with CRL since day one of the project in 2012.
“We are honoured to have been gifted these ngā ingoa tuku iho (traditional names) by our Mana Whenua Forum along with invaluable mātauranga (knowledge) Māori throughout the project,” Dr Sweeney says.
The names aren’t new to these stations as we first heard them suggested back in 2018 with the only change being Te Wai Horotiu, which was originally suggested as just Horotiu.
Looking at each of the stations, South to North
Maungawhau
I like the name change to Maungawhau, both for its acknowledgment of the mountain but also to differentiate the station from the Mt Eden village which is over 1.5km away.
On the final image, CRL say:
The station’s entrance wall is patterned precast concrete from floor to ceiling with basalt inserts. The giant wall design references the atua (deity) Mataoho, the creator of the basalt volcanic field here in Tāmaki Makaurau. The 53 lava-coloured, cast glass triangles are organised to represent a map of these volcanic cones.
The large main triangle is created from Maungawhau basalt and has water flowing over the surface of this section of the wall. This references Maungawhau, the basalt caverns, caves and water springs below ground. It pays respect to Parawhenuamea (atua of freshwater) and how freshwater needs kōhatu (rock) to flow. This narrative will continue with the designs on the paved area.
This image is also the biggest change from what seen in the past (below) with the feature wall changing but also an additional escalator being added.
Karanga a Hape
The name ‘Karanga a Hape’ is a grammatical correction of the current Karangahape though I suspect many people will still just refer to it as K Road.
The Mercury Lane Entrance
Again, the internal artwork is where there appears to have been the most change with the representations Pupurangi shells (Kauri snail) replacing the scalloped voids of the previous design.
The Beresford Square Entrance
We haven’t had good quality images of the Beresford Square entrance before as it was only after the last images were released (in 2018) that the station was future proofed for 9-car trains which included building the entrance.
Platform Level
The platform level looks the corridors of a ship in a sci-fi movie.
Te Wai Horotiu
Te Wai Horotiu is expected to become the busiest in the city once it opens.
I’m fairly sure the Waihorotiu Stream starts up in Myers Park rather than Albert Park, though there was a tributary from there.
Wellesley St entrance
The station design seems to be largely unchanged from previous plans with the exception of the blue panelling on the outside which has been added to all stations. As with the other stations, it could also do with some more street trees.
Victoria St Entrance
Like with the Wellesley St entrance, the Victoria St one looks largely similar to what we’ve seen before. One aspect that does seem to be missing (from previous designs too) is a canopy over the exit. It may just be the way it’s shown in the image, as it’s not the focus, but with the Linear Park development there should only be one lane each way for cars.
Platform and Concourse
Again, these designs are fairly similar to what we’ve seen before.
Waitemata
I suspect this is the name that is likely to get the most push back, in large part because Britomart is now a well-established name for the station and surrounding area.
For the names, CRL Ltd and AT will submit a joint proposal to the New Zealand Geographic Board (NZGB) asking it to adopt the names.
New Zealand Geographic Board Ngā Pou Taunaha o Aotearoa is the national place naming authority responsible for adopting official place names. It is also the correct authority to name New Zealand’s train stations. Auckland Transport and CRLL Ltd will submit a joint request to the NZGB in late May 2022..
The Board will consider the proposed names in mid-2022 and if the proposal is accepted they are likely to carry out a public consultation. Anyone with views on the names can to submit their feedback through this channel.
Members of the public can find out more about the process on the Propose a place name section on their website.
On Friday I was also lucky enough to get a tour of the Te Wai Horotiu station. At this stage it’s still largely just a concrete shell and there’s still lots of work to go in digging it out. Here are a few images from that.
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Do not read the comments on social media, all the tragic old racists are out in force
Yay let’s pre-emptively call everyone racists – well-done on representing the abhorrent aspects of being woke.
I agree there will be pushback on Britomart for many reasons. One I saw which I think is a fair point is that it represents settler history. If this country is built on a partnership then it’s okay to acknowledge everyone’s heritage rather than (once again) replace one with the other. More practically though, to me Waitemata represents a large area, and having be a single point is a bit confusing.
If you go for a read of the comments, there really are a lot of racist ones. One guy was saying ‘we need to take our country back’ for example.
I just ignore any comment with the word woke in it, it’s normally someone who can’t think for themselves and likes to classify everything new or progressive as bad regardless.
Britomart has been called such place for 15 years..but do you
Britomart has been an area in Auckland since 1848. Waitemata represents a huge area, the entire harbour! It doesn’t make sense naming a station after it.
Aotea is already an existing maori name, why change it for the new of a bricked over sewer?
Aotea is not an authentic Maori name for the central city – it’s actually Te Reo for Great Barrier Island!
Auckland was called Tāmaki Makaurau and Britomart was called Horotiu long before 1840… what’s your point?
Provide a reference for Britomart ever being called Horotiu. Horotiu is a small Waikato town. The maori name was Te Rerenga Ora Iti, this became Point Britomart, that name has been associated with the area since 1848.
Aotea is a well know place in Auckland, it’s had that name since 1979, the alternative is a name for a bricked over sewer which the vast majority of Aucklanders probably don’t know exists or what its name was.
So not very long then…it’s been changed, get over it.
And it can be changed again… get over yourself.
Joe – There use to be a parking building on the site underneath where the trains are now and even the CRL have acknowledge the name in this post on their FB Page . And it’s been a lot longer than 15yrs ;-
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=309222394715769&set=pcb.309223044715704
and
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=309222084715800&set=pcb.3092230
You are rather fickle Matt, flip flopping like a politician, in a reply below you’re in agreement that keeping Aotea as is due to there being an existing Horotiu.
@replytobear – ah yes, the ad hominem attack. An admission that you have lost the debate.
Unlike yourself, my evolving opinions on station names are not rooted in vague racism and Pakeha prejudice. As you will note if you re-read, my considerations are to station names being quick and easy to say, as well as being geographically identifiable.
“One I saw which I think is a fair point is that it represents settler history. If this country is built on a partnership then it’s okay to acknowledge everyone’s heritage rather than (once again) replace one with the other”
About 2/3rds of current station names are in English. Changing a couple and introducing a couple of new Maori names is actually acknowledging both, isnt it?
If Maori have to put up with war criminals being honoured by places like Hamilton and Picton, then you’ll survive a few Maori train station names in Auckland.
The racists were indeed out in force on social media (as usual). Such insecurity over Maori names as if the English language is under threat (it isn’t). We pay homage to England every day by speaking the language.
Have to say not a fan of renaming everything everywhere (just had where I live in the UK renamed) as often it feels more knee-jerk then anything.
I think the best outcome is keep the name Britomart for the established station and use Te Reo names for the rest. I’d love to see some Pacifica names too elsewhere in the city.
Britomart was built as a dead end station. It was an embarrassment from the start. So yes; let’s call it the station that connects to the harbour! How is that inaccurate in any sense? I would like to know that it takes me close to the ferries if I was exploring, and Waitematā says exactly that. Marvellous!
As always we’ll have to nag and nag to get a few bloody trees.
Other than Te Wai Horotiu all names make sense and can easily be identified. Maungawau has been used in Mt Eden since the year dot – my son went to Maungawau School. As for Waitemata, it just makes sense over naming it after an obscure fort some distance away that was demolished 150 years ago – step out of the station and there’s the Watemata Harbour. Te Wai Horotiu? It’s a little history lesson, and let’s face it Aotea Square was a made- up name for an area which didn’t even exist until the 1960 s
Renaming Britomart is my only real complaint. That name for the area has really come from the train station, for some long it was nothing until the train station opened.
Maungawhau and Karanga a Hape, perfect.
Te Wai Horotiu, if you changed the colour scheme on the ceiling of the Wellesley St entrance, it would be a real aotea. That might be a reason to use the older planned name.
I like the idea of calling it Waitemata, yes it’s not the harbour, but everything forward of old Britomart Point is reclaimed, so it kind of fits?
The one I don’t get is Aotea Square. That’s the literal destination and all that it has ever been called – I would have thought that would have been a prime candidate to stay as-is.
Te Wai Horotiu is the name given to the stream that starts in what is now Myers Park and runs (piped) down Queen St to the harbour. Horotiu is the name of the taniwha of the area that inhabited Te Wai Horotiu. Horotiu as been spoken about in conjunction with this station since the start…. firstly, not to upset Horotiu by the works, then as a name for the site. No issue from me.
But they seem to have missed. The development called Commercial Bay is located in what was Point Stanley. The station known as Britomart was actually Commercial Bay and what was actually Britomart Point appears to now be a parking building on Bledisloe Wharf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Britomart#/media/File:Auckland_Waterfront_Plan.jpg
The station isn’t at Aotea Square, it’s about two hundred metres north and it’s certainly not the literal destination by any means, few people will be catching the train to or from the square, most will go through the Victoria Street entrance anyway.
The town hall, the Aotea Centre and the old Imax Centre all front onto the square, so there’s a bunch of destinations in that area. But I suppose all they have to do is tell people to stop here if they want to reach those places on the announcement thing and it will have the same effect.
Just can’t understand why we’d swap one Maori name for another, established one already, given the CRL website itself calls the stop Te Wai Horotiu (Aotea), so the Aotea bit is obviously key to the whole exercise.
@Buttwizard I think there are two sides to it
Arguments for Aotea Station
– Established place name since the 70s (Aotea Square, Aotea Centre)
– Ties in with the name Aotearoa
– Quicker and easier to say than Te Wai Horotiu, and shortening that to Horotiu Station could cause confusion with the railway town between Ngaruawahia and Te Rapa.
Arguments against Aotea Station
– Not a geographically accurate name – refers to Great Barrier Island
– Te Wai Horotiu is the Te Reo name of a local geographic feature (the Queen St stream)
– Te Pokapū (already used as the new Te Reo name for Aotea Centre) literally translates to ‘the centre place’, could be a more accurate Te Reo alternative for a midtown train station
Obviously I’m not the right person to ask, not being Maori and all. I don’t know whether local iwi were consulted on the naming of Aotea Square back in the 70s
Seems a shame we couldn’t have been given a proper name to bestow upon our Performing Arts district instead and used that, if Aotea is not a particularly relevant example.
TBH I would love to see the stream that was in Queen St get more of a nod than a cultural one when it comes to the name of a train station a fair distance from it, but at that point you start having awkward conversations about why there are still cars on Queen St and we mustn’t have that.
The real problem is Aotea is a bit of made up brown-wash from the 70s that isn’t really relevant to the area (other than being incumbent).
Apparently it was going to be Aotearoa Square but they thought that a bit long, so chopped it to Aotea. I assume it was entirely decided by white men back then, and doubt any Maori input was sought whatsoever.
It’s no problem, places end up with the name of their station. Britomart didn’t exist as a place until the station was built, it was only the name of one side street.
Great names all around but you’d have thought we’d have learnt not to rename some thing from another groups culture. Renaming an Edwardian building servicing a technology invented by the British does seem like the opposite of what happened all through the 1800s where Pa were renamed etc. Or is it different in reverse, please educate me.
Gladly, violently expropriating or dubiously acquiring land from indigenous people then renaming it as if if had no prior history is one thing, renaming a public utility built on said land so it returns some element of the indigenous heritage that was basically erased is another thing, these things are different, I hope this helps.
I really don’t think Mangawhau is a great name. The top of the summit is almost 1.5 kilometres away. It’s no better at describing your destination than Mt Eden is. Personally, I think they should have just gone with Newton and left it at that.
Same with Britomart. It’s just creating confusion by renaming a long established name after a body of water.
It’s a lot better than Mt Eden. The northern side of Mangawhau is a pretty short walk and within sight, Mt Eden shops not so. Newton is a bit of a nothing suburb that isn’t that well known, same with Eden quarter.
Eden terrace I think I meant
700 metres away. I disagree that it’s a bit of a nothing suburb. Newton is the well established name for the area and is going to receive a ton of brown field development in the next couple of decades.
The only time I’ve heard of Newton nowadays is because of the old pacific island Presbyterian church, PIC Newton off K Road. Unfortunately the old Newton was destroyed by the motorway.
Maungawhau, however, is the name of the Council ward, the name of a well known school in the area and also the name of the mountain of the area.
I have a kiwi workmate in Sydney who we nickname Maungawhau because of her old school.
According to Google Maps Newton is technically further to the west – across SH16 on the Ponsonby side. So renaming Mt Eden Station ‘Newton’ would cause maybe more confusion. I agree with Jimbo that Eden Terrace would be a better English name, but overall I think Maungawhau is a good rename.
Anything more than 3 syllables is a chore to say. I expect common use will contract “Karanga a hape” to “K’Rd” and “Te Wai Horotiu” to either “Horotiu” or “Aotea”.
Yep that’s my only gripe. I love the use of Maori place names, I like the rename of britomart, but your main stations need to be quick to say maybe they needed to keep that in mind when selecting names. Although the welsh have some real doozies
Yes I agree. People aren’t going to say Te Wai Horotiu. They’re simply going to shorten it to “Horotiu”.
I thought about gifting them some names: He Utu Nui; Tino Utu Nui; and Moni Moumou.
Yikes, idk about that mate
We need more native trees in our city. There are too many exotics; Oak, Pin Oaks, London Plane, Tulip trees, Liquid amber, Eucalypts, Moreton Bay Fig, Pines, Acacia, Eucalypts.
The are pohutukawa are mainly beside the water.
Our native, mainly evergreens, Totara, Rimu, Karaka, Kauri, Nikau, Kowhai, Puriri, Kawakawa, Manuka, Kahikatea, Matai, Miro, Mahoe, Rewarewa, Titoki, Fuschia, Toetoe, Rangiora, Rata, Whau are few.
The City rail link website has a tree programme. 150 notable trees have been removed around the 3 new stations and have been stored for replanting. These are mainly exotics including 14 Tulip trees from Mayoral Drive which has 140 of them. The others are not named. They have taken cuttings from the Harvey tree which is an English Plane tree.
I hope the CRL group will reconsider.
I reckon deciduous trees work better in a cityscape, allowing more light through in the winter, providing lush shade in the summer. Imagine how gloomy Te Ha o Hine place would be in winter, if those were mature titoki instead of plane trees.
Most of the native trees die off in a city environment pretty quickly, plenty of arborists will tell you planting natives is a pointless waste of money, unless it’s a pohutukawa which will survive almost anywhere. .
Why does anyone have an issue with the names? in about 6 months after opening no one will even remember and just get on with it.
More trees and bike lanes though.
Tend to agree, it’s the kind of thing we would look back on as completely absurd in 10 years time. I like the name Britomart but it will stick out like a sore thumb with the other Maori names, make the change now and it will be completely normal in a few years.
Yes. Compare it to the Auckland City Arena, known now as Spark Arena but was previously named Vector Arena.
Waitemata could become a name to encompass the entire downtown transport hub: Downtown ferry terminal, Britomart train station, Lower Albert Street bus station. Like Circular Quay in Sydney.
Several people within AT like to call Britomart ( Station ) the Britomart Transit Centre, even though the ferries and buses, are located nowhere near to the actual train station. Yet more confusion by the AT management.
OOps, that should say;
Several people within AT like to call Britomart ( Station ) the Britomart Transport Centre, even though the ferries and buses, are located nowhere near to the actual train station. Yet more confusion by the AT management.
See: https://at.govt.nz/bus-train-ferry/more-services/britomart/?msclkid=858ec9ccd0c911ecb1bd46d01f340626
The names still have to go to consultation. I’d expect some pushback on Aotea and Britomart. If spellings are to be fixed, then MtEden Rd and K’Rd should be renamed at the same time
What they need to do is put it to a public Vote with this years Local Body Elections .
Good idea:
We could trot out all of the names of our political hacks, then we could vote on those names:
“Phil Goff Station”
“St Jacinda the Blessed Station”
“Forgetable media Personality of the Year Station”
Or “the station with no sign, up by the corner of K Road station”
etc
Or the CRL the “Great Hole in the Ground” possibly . or the “Great Money Pit” .
I’m beyond excited about our city having this! Can’t wait to use, often.
Design of stations look fantastic, pleased we’ve obviously gone for the long term view of building them well and grandly as befits city public spaces that will be used by millions and for decades to centuries.
Remain surprised however that that design approach seems to stop dead at the edge of the station buildings. Contrast this with CrossRail, each station there has lead to the transformation of surrounding streets with plazas and people focused new spaces, driving removed or reduced.
Huge intergenerational investment in city shaping infrastructure is intended to be transformational, improving, otherwise how can it justify its costs? It is meant to change things, for the better, profoundly. Not just quantitively, eg number of riders etc, but also qualitatively; the quality of place and experience, especially the public realm.
So the stations look magnificent, but the streets, far too unchanged. Surely there’s time and (relatively low) funds to fix this? Space, trees, absolutely cycle access, reduced vehicle access (bollards!).
Yes Beresford St and Vic St linear park are great changes from traffic use, but both are effectively for station buildings, and both look low on trees in the renders, and what of Pitt St, surely now we’ve seen the ‘trial’ of traffic reduced to one lane each way work, that huge width is clearly available for bike and bus lanes and trees all the way.
Agree, opportunity to change the streets needs to be seized as well.
As usual, absolutely no comments on the design or apparent accessibility etc. People get worked up over names but don’t say anything that there is literally a car parked across the station entrance in one of the released pictures.
I wonder how the newer design for Te Wai Horotiu will affect the design of the proposed Tower above it…if that Tower ever happens.
If you mean the Mercury Lane image, I would assume that will be a disabled car park – there’s a wheelchair in the image. It’s a steep street, so I don’t have any issue with the provision of that space for that use.
Car parking should not be located immediately outside of the main entrance and definitely shouldn’t be on the footpath. If there is a need for accessible drop off space, it should be on East Street or Beresford Square.
Agreed. Cannot use a sloped site for mobility parking anyway – a reason it needs to be higher in the parking allocation hierarchy.
I would have left Aotea and Britomart, given they are established names for the areas. The rest are good and the station designs looking great.
Britomart is the name of a property development, so that’s surely inappropriate, we wouldn’t call it Commercial Bay either.
Aotea is a cursed (that square has never worked) made up bit of faux indigenous naming. Sincerely done by the powers that be at the time, but now we surely know better to actually ask for a real name.
Note too, at the time it was angrily shouted about as being confusing etc by similar voices to those now defending it. Yeah ‘Midtown and Civic Centre’ had very serious and vocal proponents back in the day… change will always be hard for some, no matter how gentle, which suggests better to go hard out, do things properly, in a few years they’ll be fight to keep the things we change now.
Yes people are just against change. Remember the up roar when Mt Egmont was changed to Mt Taranaki. Now I can’t remember the last time I heard it referred to as Mt Egmont.
I’m not ideologically wedded to Aotea or Britomart but just felt that regardless of their origins, that’s what the areas are known as, though I do quite like Waitemata as a name. On the other side, I did like a proposal I saw for Aotea to be named “Civic” given what’s around there.
And as for “Commercial Bay”, plenty of stations in Asian cities are named after developments (usually malls) bearing the developers name. Maybe we should have sold naming rights? /s
“change will always be hard for some, no matter how gentle, which suggests better to go hard out, do things properly, in a few years they’ll be fight to keep the things we change now”
A lot of truth in this.
Commercial Bay was the colonial name for the bay before it was reclaimed and the station built. Point Britomart was the colonial name for the point at the eastern end of the bay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Bay#/media/File:Auckland_Waterfront_Plan.jpg
Hopefully will have names also in English language to save confusion.
Do you get confused when you have to go to Papatoetoe? Orakei? Onehunga?
Maybe you best stick to the north shore where only one of the RTN names is in Maori. North of Akoranga, you’re sweet.
What exactly is the confusion Roj? Will you suddenly not know where you are and just be stuck there until someone comes translates the name for you. What a load of trolling
Yep, every time I drive through Whanganui I’m glad they kept the English name Wanganui as well, I’d have no idea where was otherwise…
Love the designs, names I like already or are growing on me. Looking forward to them opening, I wonder how much COVID has delayed the CRL project if at all.
+1 Was initially very resistant to the Britomart name change. Seeing that Britomart is really the turning point on public transport in Auckland it is of astounding importance to Auckland and by extension the nation. But a name is just a name, the station itself is the important part for me.
+1
Covid has to have had a big impact on the project. There’s no way it hasn’t. My bet is a year or 2 of delay.
I don’t see any issue with having one name for the station, and another name for the location nearby. Fairly easy to cope with a station called Waitematā, knowing that will be down near the harbour’s edge (it’s in the name: Wai), and the surrounding retail area can still be called Britomart (no idea what that means, or meant – possibly a brightly coloured supermarket was there once?). Most people are intelligent enough to understand that – and if that means the old white racists no longer go there, then that’s a win-win in my books.
Similar story with Te Wai Horotiu – a far nicer name than Aotea, or Civic, and again, we can expect to soon finding the wonderful Civic theatre at Te Wai Horotiu station, as well as the sad and pathetic Aotea Opera House. Who would want to be associated with that ugly lump?
Even best of all – its only just today that I understand the significance of the Karanga in Karangahape Road ! I’ll happily sing its praises now. Hooray for my Te Reo Maori lessons !
And – the design of the stations looks fantastic. Well done to everyone who had a part in the designs.
Don’t forget the images only show the stuff that CRLL are contracted to deliver. Victoria St and Wellesley St are already in design. Also, bike paths just aren’t visible in those views.
Good design of native tree planting for Victoria St is coming.
By the time space for people on foot, on bikes and in buses is provided, with a bit of room for a few cars and delivery vans, there’s not much space left in theses streets, but they will have all the trees that can be fitted in.
“Aotea” – imagine coming out onto Victoria St and thinking, “Where the heck is Aotea Square?”
“Britomart” – named after a demolished colonial fortress, named after a demolished headland, named after a survey ship, named after a mythical British female warrior who was the embodiment of the virtue of Chastity in Spenser’s “Faerie Queen”. We can do better.
observations:
1. non of the stations have the word “station on the outside. So you will have to already know what the vague name represents. Same thing applies at Manukau . If AT wants more people to use trains, they need to include the word “Station” after each name.
2. I notice in the renders, that English wayfinding has been relegated to smaller lettering. This assumes that everyone can read and write Te Reo. The same thing has happened at Puhunui ( Station ). This is another example of the AT customer experience people, being out of touch with the majority of their current and potential customers.
the
A recognisable brand is far more important than the word station. None of the tube stations in London have the word station in them.
The English writing is the same size as the Maori writing so I doubt there will be too many issues for people understanding those signs.
If people can’t figure out that the building is a train station from the massive pictogram of a train, then I’m not sure that text will help.
+1
Imagine if some of these people left New Zealand and visited places other than Gold Coast..they’d implode.
Hi Bus Driver – have you ever been to another country, where they have a civilised Rapid Transit system? Say, London, or New York, or Paris, or many more. In London there will be a station – say, Bond Street station – but all it will have on every piece of signage is just the words BOND STREET – and amazingly, people manage to understand where they are, and get on or off as required. In London they will often just show the London Underground roundel (the red circle with the blue slash through the middle) with just the words Bond Street next to it. In Paris people just have a sign with a big M and they associate that with the Metro. In Berlin they have a sign with a U or an S – I think you get the picture now? The words are not that important – the easily recognisable graphic and the colours are the main thing. If you show a Londoner a red line and a roundel, they will instantly reply: Central Line. Or show them a yellow line and before you’ve even shown them the picture, they’ll be running off to the Circle Line. Words are not the most important thing here. Same with your bus – all I want to see is the number – I salivate at 24 or 38. Cheers!
“Bond Street station”
That location name has been chosen because the station is located at Bond Street. On the AT network many of the station name plinths describe the wider suburb. ie Mt Albert, or Kingsland, or Manukau
Manukau Station does have the word “Station” on the outside I see on the
Google Maps picture.
But if you have a look at the 13:09 mark the Station is hidden by the roof of the pedestrian cover crossing the road ;-
I thought I was going to be a grumpy old white man about changing the Britomart name but turns out I’m not. The new name seems lovely to me and it is going to be even more appropriate when it floods with the sea level rise. (oooh too soon?).
But instead I’m going to be an angry young thing and cry out about the fact that in 2022 we are still making links to ridiculous imaginary friends to inspire the artworks.
There are no Gods and nor are there taniwha. Some massive naked bloke never pushed the sky away from the ground. Why can’t we all just grow up and put away these childish beliefs. Particularly in a week like this where two groups of religious nut jobs are abusing their stolen and lied to obtain powers to enforce their religious views on millions of others in order to oppress women. We have the Christian fascists of the USA who are going to remove the right to abortions and the Islamic fascists of Afghanistan who are now stopping women leaving their homes unless necessary and then only if covered head to toe.
All gods are flawed and even worse are the people who worship them. We should not be spending our limited public transport infrastructure money on designs that force everyone to pay homage to other people’s imaginary friends. Keep you gods out of our train stations.
Nah mate. Bad take – and that’s coming from an atheist-agnostic here.
Don’t tar indigenous beliefs and mythologies with the brush of fundamentalist USA christianity.
Just because it is someone’s cultural tradition doesn’t give it any validity or right to be rammed down our throats. We are a secular country we don’t have to bow down to anyone’s imaginary friends including Maori imaginary friends. If we have to accept their gods then we have to accept everyone’s gods. It should have nothing to do with our public transport infrastructure.
As an Atheist, I’m on board with the secular thing but IMHO non-anglo cultures have a bit of colour and mystique around their myths and legends, which I am OK with.
Standard religious stuff, not so much – which probably is a bit hypocritical.
I guess we aren’t getting rid of the City’s current religious influences any time soon, so why not have a bit of the Maori myths and legends too.
Who cares? Nothing is going to be rammed down my throat when I walk into Maungawhau station and see a volcanic waterfall.
You say NZ is secular but I feel NZ is far more Christian then many other countries I’ve been to (even Christian ones).
I bet even in your atheist ways, you do things that are quite religious with out thinking about it eg charity and helping others. Then again you might just be a nasty old piece of work.
You might not like Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Zoroaster or Maui but just think how boring a place the world would be without the stories, history and architecture. It’s the inspiration of so many great works of art, music and literature and why so many of us love to travel.
So you want to ram your secularism down everyone’s throat then? Ironic.
Just let people enjoy the mythology and artwork/architecture, jeez.
I don’t believe in Santa Claus either but I still thought it was cool they stuck him up on the side of Whitcoulls every year.
Jeez, Gloriavale really done a number on you. Glad you got out though 🙂
My hunch is that the official names will be complemented by easy-to-remember names like Downtown, Midtown and Uptown.
That’s a good point; and it would be helpful for newcomers to Auckland to get their bearings in the city centre.
In that vein Maungawhau’s station subtitle could be ‘Eden Terrace’, since that’s the suburb it’s in.
Though there would be a bit more complexity if light rail/light metro gets built with new city centre stations at Wynyard Quarter and the Universities – or the Strand station gets upgraded to a true long distance station with a new Te Reo name
Can’t see it happening – adding secondary names with different meanings is just confusing. Its more likely they add landmarks as they do for some stations now (e.g. Mt Smart Stadium, Eden park etc).
I definitely like the new names – my only little gripe at this point would be contracting Te Wai Horotiu to just Horotiu, for the sake of being quicker to say?
Or would that cause confusion with that little village between Ngaruawahia and Te Rapa? In which case I feel like the name Aotea would do okay; it does admittedly have the established association with Aotea Square and Aotea Centre.
I thought I’d feel stronger about Britomart being renamed, but the name Waitemata is growing on me – as someone else pointed out it would really suit a multi-modal waterfront transit hub with trains, buses, ferries (and hopefully surface light rail?)
Same here – shortening Horotiu and Waitemata transport hub growing on me.
A possible alternate name for Aotea/Te Wai Horotiu could be Te Pokapū?
A rather literal name – translates to “the centre place” according to Te Aka Maori Dictionary – but it serves well and correlates with the Te Pokapū Aotea Centre, and it’s a shorter, quicker-to-say name.
I like Te Pokapū and am of the perhaps uncommon view that every rail network needs a “central”.
Mt Eden Station is in Mt Eden rather than Eden Terrace (only just). Ideally would have both names for it.
K Rd, no strong feelings on it.
Aotea should remain Aotea. Far worse name for a station (too long) that’s going to be used elsewhere on Queen St.
Britomart again should remain as is. Waitemata is just adding confusion given the sheer number of other uses Waitemata has in Auckland for important features/areas. Happy for it to share a Maori name but this specific name isn’t a good choice. Ideally the shared name would be Te Rerenga Ora Iti.
Overall seems like a total waste this whole renaming effort.
Matt L , if look behind the car in Mercury Lane tthere is a person in a wheelcar who is either being dropped off or being picked up as the rear passenger door of the Car is open . And the spot may be a handicap pickup/dropoff space .
Aotea Square is a destination. Leave it as Aotea station and keep it simple. It also sounds awesome. Te Wai Horotiu is the stream that runs between Aotea and Britomart/Waitematā. It’s more what Queen St is than mid-Queen.
Maungawhau
Karanga a Hape
Aotea
Britomart / Waitematā
I could get used to the Waitematā one as it’s literally the harbourside
That’s a good point, especially in the interest of shortening the name Te Wai Horotiu (since Horotiu is also the name of a town between Ngaruawahia and Hamilton. What if it one day has a train station on a hypothetical Waikato suburban rail system?) Aotea is much less of a mouthful.
If a street running light rail system ever gets built in Auckland, a Queen St light rail stop would possibly be a better candidate for the name Te Wai Horotiu.
Matt Bear – Horotiu did have a Station until 1975 , ;-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horotiu_railway_station
Thanks David.
Seems to be included in this rather low-res vision for Hamilton commuter rail and mass transit shared by MP Jamie Strange in 2019.
https://twitter.com/jamiestrangenz/status/1162447486046261248
I traced, upscaled, and elaborated on that network in my free time last year.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKVe2HgakAIa266?format=jpg&name=4096×4096
From looking at the renders there isn’t a lot of effective shelter around the stations. If the intention is lure people from the door to door comfort of car travel it needs to be acknowledged that the weather is often not sunny and windless. Adequate provision needs to be made for cover from the elements.
2 new stations, 2 new Maori names with formal secondary English names.
2 existing stations, 2 existing names with formal secondary Maori names.
Pretty easy when you look at things as a partnership and don’t try to play power politics with history and identity.
Waitangi, the meeting of waters.
When you go into a negotiation, you go in outrageous and settle for something in the middle that is reasonable, as outlined above.
Do your job NZ Geographic Board and administer fairly the te reo for Maori and the English for the 21C multicultural Pakeha that stands in for everyone else, European, Asian, Pasifika etc.
Let people have their choice of name, we’ve all paid for it and no one truly wants to have THAT equity debate based on the demographics of the ratepayer / taxpayer.
Put the ideology away, relax and have a cup of tea, a beer or some stream water.
So are you advocating for the other 38 stations to have an even mix of English and Maori names, which would mean renaming in Maori about half a dozen?
Storm in a teapot, much? The PT announcement normally tells what other areas are nearby anyways, an example might be something like “Waitemata Station, for the Britomart, Commercial Bay & Ferry Building” etc… the sky will not fall in because a station has a Maori name.