This is a guest post by Darren Davis. It originally appeared on his excellent blog, Adventures in Transitland, which we encourage you to check out. It is shared by kind permission.
The Northwest has always been Auckland’s public transport Cinderella, rarely invited to the public funding ball. How did this come about and what is the prognosis for the future?
The Northwest of Tāmaki Makaurau/ Auckland is one of three key growth fronts in the city. But unlike the others – the Southern and Northern growth fronts – it is not currently served by rapid transit service. It looks like real rapid transit might finally be coming to the Northwest – eventually. But it has been a very long time coming. This makes it worth delving into the history of the Northwest to get a sense of how we got to where we are now and what the prospects are for the future.
Massey – the suburban dream turned nightmare
The Northwest was and to quite an extent remains a “drive till you qualify” subregion, where lower housing costs are accompanied by higher transport costs and decreased quality of life due to the time spent travelling.
By 1961, the Northwestern Motorway (SH16) ran 11.5 kilometres from Pt Chevalier to Hobsonville Road to serve Auckland’s original airport at Whenuapai. In 1966 Auckland International Airport was opened and Whenuapai reverted to a military airport. This reduced the use of SH16 in the short term. But help was on its way with the suburbanisation of Te Atatū and Massey from the early 1960s in what was then somewhat of a public transport desert. (Auckland Motorways, Waka Kotahi, 2008, p18)
In fact, Massey was the personification of suburban neurosis at the time, along with its middle-class doppelganger of Pakūranga. To get a feel for this, I strongly recommend watching the episode of Johnstone’s Journeys on Massey in 1978 available on Iwi Whitiāhua/ NZ on Screen, in which Ian Johnstone “explores the then new suburb of Massey in West Auckland — the latest instalment in what seemed, at the time, like an unending march of urban sprawl (which had already produced seemingly far-flung suburbs like Ōtara and Porirua).”
For Johnstone, Massey was “bafflingly lacking in community amenities … like so many others, Massey is just an infestation of houses, not a community grown around a centre…” It is worth reflecting on whether we are doing that much better with Paerātā, Plimmerton Farms or Rolleston today.
Massey was, and largely remains, a dormitory suburb requiring most people to travel to often distant employment locations. This means that strong public transport connections to the rest of the region are critically important.
Back in the day, Whenuapai Bus Company provided what could only be described as a very thin service focused on connecting Henderson and Auckland City Centre, even though from 1979 it was fully publicly owned by the then Waitematā City Council. Its original focus was the rural areas of Whenuapai and Hobsonville, along with their respective air force bases. Despite the rapid residential growth in the Massey area in the 1960s and 1970s the Whenuapai Bus Company suffered from the same financial difficulties caused by increased motorisation and reduced public transport use that at the time beset almost every other bus operator in Aotearoa.
Deregulation of public transport
When the deregulation of public transport occurred in 1991, the Massey, Hobsonville and Whenuapai network was so complex that there were barely any discernible common routes, let alone route numbers, and most of the few trips operated had bespoke elements. There were very few formal bus stops, no timetable information at bus stops and no telephone enquiry service for non-ARC bus operations such as Whenuapai Bus Company. Remember that this is long before the advent of the internet, cell phones and trip-planning apps.
In fact, the entirety of Massey plus Te Atatū Peninsula was served by a single bus in the evening with trips from the city centre at 7:35 pm, 9:15 pm and 11:00 pm. While exceedingly resource-efficient, it was far from being customer-friendly, especially for people in Massey as, if there were any Te Atatū Peninsula passengers on board, it meant an additional 15-minute travel time doing the Te Atatū Peninsula loop.
2006 Passenger Transport Network Plan
In the early part of the century, the fate of the North-west was tied up with the service hierarchy established in the then Auckland Regional Transport Authority’s (ARTA) 2006 Passenger Transport Network Plan.
The good thing about the Passenger Transport Network Plan is that it, for the first time, set an ambitious goal for Auckland to double public transport patronage from 50 million per year at the time of publication in 2006 to 100 million in 2016.
While it included one of the early attempts to define a rapid transit network for Auckland, the bad thing is that the Northwestern Motorway corridor was only defined as a “Quality Transit Corridor,” not a Rapid Transit corridor. Even though a quality transit corridor was defined as having “extensive priority including bus lanes, signal priority in congested corridors,”* it did not include the separate right of ways.
*Auckland Passenger Transport Network Plan, Auckland Regional Transport Authority, 2006, p16
When planning for the further widening of the Northwestern Motorway was underway around the same time, Transit New Zealand, then the state highway road controlling authority used the Quality Transit Corridor designation in the Passenger Transport Network Plan as justification for not providing more than some non-continuous bus lanes on the Northwestern Motorway with significant gaps around interchanges.
At the same time, there was also some fear that investment in higher-order bus services for the Northwest would undermine investments just getting underway in double-tracking of the Western Line that was a key part of what was known as Project DART (Developing Auckland’s Rail Transport). This was even though at the 2006 Census, there was a grand total of just six people in the Northwest who used rail as their main means of travel to work.
Northern Strategic Growth Area
From around 2005, the then Waitakere City Council planned the Northern Strategic Growth Area (known as NorSGA). This urbanised the Hobsonville Peninsula and extended the Metropolitan Urban Limit north from Hobsonville Road to the Upper Harbour Motorway to enable the creation of new employment land in Hobsonville and a new subregional centre at Westgate, later known as Northwest Centre.
The formation of the Super City, amalgamating seven territorial authorities and the Auckland Regional Council into a single unitary authority, took place in 2010. The new council inherited the Regional Growth Strategy and the 2010 Auckland Regional Land Transport Strategy, with the Metropolitan Urban Limit at the Upper Harbour Motorway. However, the new Auckland Plan in 2012 overturned the Metropolitan Urban Limit and established a new Rural Urban Boundary which created significant greenfield growth fronts in the Northwest, North and South. The Northwestern growth front includes Whenuapai, Kumeū and Huapai.
Kumeū and Huapai
This new north-western growth front, along with the extension of metropolitan water and wastewater to Kumeū and Huapai in the early part of the century, triggered the rapid urbanisation of the area without all of the social, retail and transport infrastructure to support it.
Kumeū and Huapai are connected to the Northwestern Motorway by possibly the single-busiest two-lane state highway in Aotearoa with an average daily traffic volume of 37,026 before the pandemic in 2019. While there was limited bus service, this was stuck in the same congestion on State Highway 16 as the rest of the traffic.
Delayed public transport investment
A key principle of good transport/ land use integration is that land use and transport investment should be sequenced and designed in such a way that promotes both good urban form and prioritises sustainable transport choices. This did not take place in Northwest, continuing a pattern that kicked off with the initial urbanisation of Massey in the 1960s, focused on car-oriented growth, centred on the Northwestern Motorway.
Developments included:
- 1952: Four-lane motorway opens from Great North Rd to Te Atatū Road.
- 1955: Motorway extended from Te Atatū Road to Lincoln Road
- 1957: Motorway extended 1km from Lincoln Road to Lincoln Park Ave.
- 1961: Motorway extended from Lincoln Park Ave to Hobsonville Rd.
- 1979: Motorway built from Newton Rd to Western Springs.
- 1981: Motorway extended from Great North Road to Motions Rd.
- 1983: Gap closed from Motions Road to Great North Rd.
- 1988: A direct link between Southern and Northwestern motorways opened.
- 1989: Northwestern Motorway connected to Grafton Gully.
- 1991: Widening from four to six lanes between Te Atatū Rd and Rosebank Rd.
- 1992: Widening from four to six lanes between Newton Road and Great North Road interchanges. was widened from four to six lanes.
- 1992: Hobsonville Road terminus converted to a signalised intersection.
- 1993: Widening from four to six lanes between Rosebank Rd and Great North Rd.
- 1997: Full interchange connection to the Rosebank Peninsula employment area.
- 2006: Northwestern Motorway connected to Northern Motorway.
- 2011: Motorway extended to Brigham Creek Road.
- 2012-2016: Motorway widened to eight lanes from Western Springs to Great North Rd and from Rosebank Road to Te Atatū; nine lanes from Great North Road to Rosebank Road and six lanes from Te Atatū Road to Hobsonville Rd.
- 2017: Motorway connected to the then-new Waterview Tunnel and the Southwestern Motorway.
To give a relative sense of motorway and public transport improvements, it was only in 2010 that Massey, Whenuapai and Hobsonville got hourly Sunday bus service. Before that, Sunday buses were every 2-3 hours.
And it took until the implementation of the New Network in West Auckland for Kumeū and Huapai to get hourly bus service, and Sunday service for the first time in many years, and for Te Atatū Peninsula to get hourly Sunday bus service, previously two-hourly.
Interim Northwestern Bus Improvements
In response to pressure to finally get moving towards rapid transit in the Northwest, Waka Kotahi and Auckland Transport implemented the Interim Northwest Bus Improvements on 12 November 2023. This included the Western Express (WX1) running every 10 minutes, from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week and every 15 minutes early morning and late evening between Westgate and the city centre, alongside other bus service improvements, including frequent service connecting to key WX1 stops. It provided temporary bus stops at Westgate, and fairly basic interchanges at the Te Atatū and Lincoln Rd, plus some improvements to motorway bus shoulder lanes.
It also included significant bus service improvements to the Northwest, including half-hourly service from Kumeū and Huapai, and hourly service from Helensville, connecting to the the WX1 service at the Northwest Centre.
Within five months, the WX1 service had carried more than 275,000 passengers and bus patronage in the Massey/ Westgate area was up 25 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. From April 2025, the WX1 will be run by a fleet of 20 electric double-decker buses to meet surging demand. Frequency really is freedom.
Better late than never, the Westgate Bus Station
A key element of the WX1 and planning for rapid transit in the Northwest is a bus interchange at the Northwest Centre in Westgate, linking local buses to the planned rapid transit corridor on the Northwestern Motorway.
But, as in the words of the world-famous in New Zealand Mainland Cheese ad from 1981, “good things take time.” A lot of time. Planning for this bus interchange started in 2005. Now, a generation later, there are still only interim kerbside bus stops at the Northwest Centre. But at least planning for a permanent facility is finally underway.
This facility, expected to be complete in mid-2026, will bring Westgate up to the standards of the Northern Busway stations on the affluent North Shore, opened between 2005 and 2008.
Where we are now
On 14 June 2024, Waka Kotahi and Auckland Transport lodged confirmed designations decisions on the Notices of Requirement with Auckland Council for Northwest Auckland’s future transport projects.
It includes these projects expected to be delivered in the next 10 to 30 years:
- A future rapid transit corridor between Redhills North and Kumeū-Huapai, including stations in Kumeū and Huapai.
- A new state highway corridor extending the North Western Motorway from Brigham Creek Road to east of Waimauku. This is identified as a Road of National Significance in the Government Policy Statement 2024.
- A future SH16 interchange at Brigham Creek Road.
- Future upgrades to local transport connections in Whenuapai, Redhills, Kumeū-Huapai and Riverhead.
This is in addition to the planned Te Ara Hauāuru/ Northwest Rapid Transit between Brigham Creek and Auckland City Centre on the Northwestern Motorway corridor.
This includes:
- Rapid transit on a dedicated corridor –along the corridor which could be along, or either side of the Northwestern Motorway
- Station locations, and facilities – such as seating, passenger information displays, CCTV, lighting and bike racks.
- Access and connections to local bus services – improvements to the supporting transport network (including feeder bus services, walking and cycling).
This project will directly link into the rapid transit route from Brigham Creek to Kumeū/Huapai mentioned above.
On 4 July 2024, the Government confirmed bus rapid transit as the preferred mode and an indicative alignment and station locations for the Northwest Rapid Transit.
According to the Government “[Waka Kotahi] NZTA is investigating ways to provide a cost effective, value for money transport solution and looking into ways to build the busway in stages to provide west Aucklanders with benefits sooner.
“In the coming weeks and months, [Waka Kotahi] NZTA will be speaking with local boards, key stakeholders, and providing the community with updates on the preferred option, including station locations, local connections, and the order in which the busway is constructed.
“In the meantime, work is underway to deliver a new local bus station at Westgate with [Waka Kotahi] NZTA expecting the station to be up and running by mid-2026. The station will support the Western Express (WX1) service which launched last year and saw more than 100,000 passengers within the first three months of launching.
This is all great news and a sign that better things may well be possible for Northwest Auckland. And as they say, better late than never.” New Zealand Government media release, 4 July 2024
Final thoughts
- Anyone born when work started on the Northwestern Motorway would have had their Super Gold card seven years ago. In Aotearoa, you get Super Gold at 65.
- Anyone moving into Massey in the 1960s shouldn’t have to wait three generations to get decent public transport.
- Anyone moving into Kumeū or Huapai in the early 2000s shouldn’t be waiting a generation to see a reasonable base level of public transport.
- Even with all of the of stars appearing to come into alignment, construction of Northwest Rapid Transit is still a few years away.
- All of that is way, way too long.
70 years of continuously expanding the motorway while barely running the most meagre bus service. Yet the new GPS has slashed funding for alternatives to more motorways in the name of balance.
What we feed grows. You love traffic congestion (and all the other ills of auto-dependency? This is sure to create and maintain it.
If NZ cities had the public transport funding system that French cities do, then we wouldn’t have public transport deserts like we do in places like NW suburban Auckland and Rolleston.
https://www.centreforcities.org/blog/should-transport-in-london-be-funded-in-the-same-way-as-in-paris/
See the following link for an urbanist describing to a Christchurch audience the effect this policy had on delivering affordable light rail to dozens of French cities.
Darren Davis is an insightful writer. He has written a great article on the South Island. This quote about Rolleston and Rangiora (the centre of two of NZ’s fastest growing suburban regions) shows the lopsided nature of ‘drive to you qualify’ growth of suburban NW Auckland is a systemic problem in NZ.
“…there is much scope for service improvements, especially to outlying parts of the city such as Rolleston and Rangiora which only have hourly bus service evenings and weekends. The $78 million in promised funding would have significantly accelerated these service improvements. From my read, this money is no longer available and consequently desperately needed public transport service improvements have been pushed out by a number of years.
Even worse is the fact that the Canterbury Regional Transport Committee agreed at its 30 May 2024 meeting to move “Greater Christchurch Mass Rapid Transit implementation costs of approximately $800m to outside of the 2024-34 programme4.” As regional land transport programmes have a 10-year time span, this effectively shoves mass transit for Christchurch into never never land.”
https://adventuresintransitland.substack.com/p/the-south-island-is-still-aotearoas
If Kumeu is to be mentioned, there was a passenger rail service until 1967, mixed freight/passenger service until 1976, and 2008-9 passenger trial.
That rail service should be revived.
I’d imagine the metrics in 2024 are quite different now then 2008.
That is what the community has been lobbying for for over a decade but it gets ignored. Seems they would rather drag out the congestion for a decade more while lining consultants etc pockets than utilize existing Infrastructure and rolling srmtock
A comprehensive review of the Northwest, thanks Darren. That contrast between the bus service and motorway Lane widening is very telling.
Why does this writer just lament about “far flung” suburbs and the necessities of public transport to the “city centre”? What do people do in the “city centre” apart from shuffle papers and look at computer screens? How will this support wealth in the future?
Future thinking in NZ has been non existent to woeful for the last 50 plus years. Where will the country earn its wealth in the next 50 years? Auckland is not and never will be a vibrant tourist or financial centre, so why aren’t alternative patterns of growth being actively promoted and debated?
A strategic review of NZ would surely place our economic future as being based on the natural and agricultural wealth of our country. Why aren’t we planning for strategic growth areas such as a golden triangle between Auckland/Hamilton /Tauranga? Growth based on such things as high tech horticulture and consumer ready dairy based foods? People housed in village type housing adjacent to interesting and productive industries? After all, for most of the last 10k years our ancestors have lived and worked in such environments.
The continual harping about public transport that in reality means buses/trains running 5% full for much of the day, with price tags in the hundreds of millions, is just nuts.
For examples of where regionalisation is successfully supported by a government, just look across the Tasman.
I’m pleased to read that you are concerned about the low asset utilisation of public transport. You imply that rather than work to improve that low level we terminate public transport.
The private motor car has even lower levels of asset utilisation. Should we terminate them also??
“People housed in village type housing adjacent to interesting and productive industries”
Would you be the first to move?
Nothing is stopping industries setting up shop in the golden triangle and developers building cheaper (than Auckland) houses to live in. In fact, its already happening.
Meanwhile the market disagrees with all the city-haters and is putting its money where its mouth is. Precinct, Ockham etc doubling down in the City Center with skin in the game. Government and Council coming to the party on PT developments to future proof a city that will be at 2million by 2050.
Auckland with 50 million will be the Mumbai of the South Pacific. To anyone who grew up in the real NZ of the 50’s and 60’s this will be an anathema.
What sort of country do we want for our kids and grandchildren? Expending ever increasing amounts on PT to connect the outer regions with the “city centre” for 24/7 is not a solution that will deliver wealth and life style.
And yes my private car with only a driver, used for a real purpose, is more efficient than a 45 seat bus cruising around empty for most of its trips.
My main point is that we have not had the informed debate at a national level of what this country should look like at year 2100, or even more importantly, how it will earn its way in the world. Do we foresee a likeness to Switzerland or a broken land of slum dwellers?
@Rationalist: People can use public transport to get around the city in general, not just going to the city centre, as crazy as that may seem and I would love to see some robust evidence that a bus (and all the passengers it carries over a day) is less efficient than those same passengers all driving their cars. Where are you getting 50 million people in Auckland from? Did you write this at midnight after too many whiskeys?
Auckland is both the financial hub of NZ, and has the majority of tourists visiting Auckland (albeit often briefly enroute to more touristy destinations).
Simple way to figure out whether PT is worth it. Cost benefit analysis. And if it doesn’t meet the criteria, if the ratepayers still want and willing to pay keep it, otherwise ditch it.
You touch on agriculture as NZs main export commodity. This keeps NZ poor.
Thankfully the country is starting to move past it’s settler background with IT and other services taking it’s place.
NZs agriculture should be feeding it’s own people, not Chinese, Brits etc.
It’s shocking that I can purchase NZ produce cheaper in rural England then I can in the Waikato. My whanau in the Waikato should not be going without milk as it’s too expensive because I fancy cheap NZ cheese from Tesco here in the UK (which by the way is lower quality then equivalent British cheese).
This is a very good point. Why can I buy cheaper Anchor cheese and butter in UAE and Qatar than I can in Auckland?
Exporting is good, winning/maintaining marketshare on price isn’t.
Is the export of dairy-powder really helping us? Isn’t it better to actually produce the goods and sell them?
Abit like the French do.
What does that have to do with the Northwest. No clue – but any development to the NW is good in my book. The western ‘express’ (no one that sits on it calls it express (in the mornings it usually takes 10 minutes to travel 500 metres from busstop to the motorway).
Yes, value adding to dairy they are aware of and doing more of, from what I understand, just hard to gear up the market & production maybe.
Where exactly across the Tasman have they successfully regionalised their economy? It’s one of the most urbanised countries in the world.
People literally fly-in fly-out from Perth for mining jobs rather than live in the communities where the mining is happening.
Long overdue. Another issue with the northwestern is the gap between Te Atatu and Point Chev offramps which causes much of the congestion as most of west auckland has to go towards only two onramps in Te Atatu or Lincoln.
We need a bridge between Rosebank and Glendene to effectively open up the rest of west auckland to the northwestern including bus services from places like Glen Eden, Sunnyvale, Henderson and Glendene going directly to the motorway through Glendene and Rosebank.
See the shelved project here:
https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2010/12/16/the-whau-river-bridge/
There is a few places where these would be helpful in dispersing traffic. One should go northwest from Beach Haven into Greenhithe to link with the UHH. Perhaps also another one from Bayview. Active modes included.
I would imagine a lot of eastbound traffic could go that way and do the loop back around to the Isthmus, instead of crawling across to the Northern Motorway.
In part, this history reflects the low rates base for Waitakere CC, the lack of support from ARC up to 2010 and the need for focus on North-Western rail to get a Business Case that persuaded investment to be allowed. Like CRL, complementary modes and routes are expected to keep their heads down until the first priority project gets its funding, meaning that development of their business cases is left until later than it should be. Only offerings of “Jam tomorrow” RONS seem to get group promotion in a co-ordinated way, and that leaves holes – ASH does not seem to guarantee the Brigham Creek – Huapai Rapid Transit that needs to be built at least at the same time. (Or should ASH be SOOT – Single-Occupant Only Transport?)
I think that is the issue. As part of the business case for favoured projects they pretend no other projects exist and come up with a biased analysis to get funding. The result is often the wrong things get funded.
The reason the North Western Motorway took so long to improve was simply that nobody at Transit NZ lived out that way so nobody was complaining about their trip in.
Loosely related, I like the Mayor’s proposal that any second harbour crossing should be a bridge going north from Meola Reef, hitting the new NW busway on the south side (and potentially, SH20 down to Onehunga/Airport).
However, I would imagine concerted pushback from environmental groups.
The main problem with that brain fart, other than the environmentally sensitive and geologically unstable reef, is the connections either side of the bridge. How exactly are we supposed to push a new Harbour bridge motorway through point Chev and Birkenhead?
Question – is there not a need for a stop at Rosebank, between Te Atatu and Point Chev?
It seems to have quite a lot of employment there and would also serve the northern Avondale/Rosebank residents that are quite some distance from the Western Line. A station there would allow transfers to buses down Patiki and Rosebank Rds
Yes, and lock of a more inner west stop.
Problem is it’s right on the end of a peninsula without any access and only warehouses nearby.
If you put a station there there’s no way to get buses to it and basically nothing within walking distance.
It’s actually easier to put the rosebank road bus through to te atatu for the connecting.
Thanks for recommending “Johnson’s Journey”, great viewing. I wonder where the Massey residents interviewed in 1979 are now.
I have been to Brisbane and used river ferries and trains. Brisbane is an eye opener to make tourism worthwhile. Diversity in economy would be my concern. If infrastructure is limited then lagged economy would be more disappointing than spending money along roads or train tracks. There’s need to review the cost benefits ratios to be progressive . What’s real cost of loans for state which is in contrast to companies and individuals.
I still (possibly in vain) hope for a NZ Superfund bid. It’s the perfect project for them to do a REM with, large ridership with potential for much more with intensification/sprawl/extensions/good bus connections, and it’s a long enough distance with enough congestion that even with 100% passenger farebox recovery (i.e. no council/gov subsidy) that it’ll be cheaper and faster in peak than driving.
Plus the route is pretty obvious, with clear points/destinations for stations with lots of intersecting bus routes, and ripe for redevelopment/upzoning. And it’s a mostly gov/council owned route, which is beside a motorway, which takes the wind out of NIMBYs.
But, I’d settle for a busway, gets 60/70% of the benefit, for less capex (but vastly more opex per passenger).
Tbh I think it’s good we’ve left a blatantly obvious project this long. As I don’t think the private sector was ready to step up back then, and the gov hasn’t really had any vision in terms of transport since the 80s. Possibly some of the RONs count as a vision.
Maybe fewer Westies have paper pushing jobs in the CBD so bus patronage has been slow. My family living in Massey and Te Atatu South has always worked at Mangere. Try getting there for work every day on public transport. Before the Waterview Tunnel it was a challenge simply getting there by car.
I’m doubtful that the NW m/w extended to Hobsonville Rd. in 1961. More like 1971 and not a proper 4 lane m/w.
Passenger train definitely needs to go to Kumeu very soon. Not 10 years from now!
You would have loved the AT light rail scheme, would have put rail lines from Massey to Mangere.
Doubtful trains will ever get to kumeu.
To many drawn out gravy train jobs planning the rapid transit corridor ( bus lanes) which will wipe out half of kumeus businesses. Green space etc. They don’t seem to get the flooding issues in the kumeu flooded plain since they allowed so much flood plain to be filled next to river. Protecting trough dwellers seems more impt
Lovely article Darren.
We would have been a different city altogether if the ARC MUL had held. Thanks for being on the inside at Waitakere Council and ARC where we planned hard for integrated and efficient new towns like Hobsonville.
Thanks also for your connected sense of history that is truly consequential.
Shoutout to Minister Cullen, PM Clark, Transit and old Mayor George Wood achieving a real feat with the Northern Busway. There runs the northwest counterfactual.
I’m a big fan of doing anything to improve public transport. I’ve been a big user of the cycleway and absolutely love it. The Te Whau Pathway will be a game changer and in all probability bring the NW cycleway to bursting point. It won’t happen with this government but some sort of tram makes massive sense along the NW… I would have it go along Lincoln Road as well. It could head along SH18 to Hobby point as well. In a harbour city like ours I look at Sydney’s ferries with envy.
The rapid busway should suffice on SH16, for the immediate future. It was transformational for the North Shore and the same will apply here.
Nothing wrong with Auckland’s ferries….
A busway is short termism in my view. The northern Busway would be a significantly better service if it was light rail or similar. It seems like a busway lacks vision to me. We are talking about the NW of Auckland and we have one ferry service despite having ready access to he upper harbour.
I grew up in Glendene in the 1960s and 1970s in a household without a car. It was nearly an hour to university in the city by the slow as bus which wound it’s way through the back streets of Kelston. My life’s goal was getting out of Glendene and university was my ticket. That was the 80s. Now I live in an inner city suburb. I catch a bus to work in the city. I feel hard done by if I wait more than 5 minutes and it takes 10 to 15 minutes. I am eagerly waiting for the central rail loop. Then I can catch a train to Mt Eden or Kingsland. I enjoy the local cafes, bars, shops, art gallery, parks and amenities. I can still drive to Glendene (who would catch a bus and there is no train). But I don’t want to live there. I am not denying people who like Glendene. Good for you. But not for me.
AUT and UoA are so badly connected despite having a combined student cohort of at least 55K+. Using the train will required getting off at Britomart or Grafton then with a 20 minutes walk or wait for the connecting bus that is hardly on time. Poor planning.
I think that is the point of the stop near the Aotea centre. That is virtually beside AUT and not too far from the Uni…used to make that walk all the time ( granted Albert Park Hill always took a bit out of me)
Great article Darren. I do think you could have focused a litle more on the ‘far’ Norwest – Westgate to Waimauku – it has been a litany indecision, inneptitude, horrendous can-kicking, and a prime example of the broken relationship that is WK/AT/AC and (IMHO) AT’s contempt for the west. The context is runaway housing development in Westgate/Redhills, Whenuapai, Kumeu, Huapai and Riverhead and, as you say, the busiest 2 lane road in the country. This is also one of the most dangerous in the Auckland region. 10’s of Millions in revenue from the Auckland fuel tax and developer contributions funnelled out of the Norwest. A less than adaquate PT system sitting in the same congestion as everyone else. Lets look at the abject failures:
– terrible and confusing roading design at Norwest and connection to Westgate cause terrible congestion
– unfinished motorway connections from Norwest to SH18 and SH16
– still no promised bus interchange at Norwest
– funnelling of traffic through Whenuapai to connect to SH18 from SH 16
– Brigham to Waimauku fixes approved and funded in 2016 by National, scrapped by Labour because of no bike lane. No action until this year – delay falsely blamed on environment court action (which only affected Huapai to Waimauku – which is not the priority anyway) – if anyone wants a timeline of this ‘big joke on the Norwest’ – look through the ‘updates’ here – https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/sh16-brigham-creek-and-waimauku/
– Closing the right turn from Coatsville/Riverhead to SH16 rather than actually starting the improvments – it is just a roundabout not a flyover!
– Prioritising Huapai to Waimauku (15k cars a day) improvements over the clearly more important and highly congested and dangerous Kumeu to Brigham Creek (36000 cars a day) – can they not chew and walk?
– WK pausing any further work on Kumeu to Brigham Creek in “response to a significant increase in forecasted costs.” in August 2023 – so its back to the drawing board, again!? At the same time opposing a plan change to build more housing (Riverhead and Taupaki) because of their own failure to fix the problems.
– Half hearted and set-up-to-fail train trial from Swanson to Helensville in 2009 and ongoing refusal to even consider the line and repuposing Pukekohe trains for the route (AT)
I would note that AT and AC were sued for $87m by the Norwest developers for unkept promises and some of these other failures – somehow they won on points of law.
In 10 years (yes a decade) all we have had is a lower speed limit and a closed intersection. Meanwhile we have 15,000 new houses, a New World, a Burger King and now a McDonalds.
None of what you mention that is planned will fix any of the problems for the Norwest in the next 15 years. Meanwhile the Government will force the council to open up more land for development in the Norwest.
Bravo. The four-laning of Brigham Creek Road, through a town centre that has only existed since 2017 is insane. This should have been in place, and built first, with things like the narrow bridge upgraded. Now we have an entire community trying to make its way through single-lane temporary signalised roadworks that will last until the end of the year – likely beyond – before the four lane works even start in anger and we have many months more of the same again.
When it’s built it will be great. In the meantime (the next decade+) it’d be great if they could use the existing (and recently upgraded) and under-utilised infrastructure – yes the heavy rail line that runs from Swanson through to Kumeu, Huapai, Waimauku, Helensville and Kaukapakapa. Even a service only to Huapai would make a huge difference.
Get in on the Wellington train order or add on to the CAF order with some dual mode/BEMU units and you’d be away.
Why not? The usual council/AT/GA response is “oh it didn’t work decades ago when sweet FA people lived there” /s The area literally has tens of thousands more people living there, the road in and out as pointed out in the OP is the busiest in the country linking in to the general carpark that is the North Western motorway.
Rail to Huapai would help grow the existing network as well as reducing congestion, improving lives, improving safety, reducing emissions and so forth.
It’s nonsense that this isn’t already happening. It doesn’t need hundreds of millions of improvements.