This guest post by Darren Davis originally appeared on his great blog Adventures in Transitland, and shared here by kind permission.
Now that it’s only three shopping months until Christmas, here is my top ten list of what I want Santa to give to public transport in Aotearoa/ New Zealand.
Starting from the top of the country, which in Te Ao Māori [Māori world view] is the Lower South Island, and heading north to JAFA-ville (aka Tāmaki Makaurau/ Auckland) and beyond, here are my top ten wishes for a festive season chock full of public transport essentials.
Trains for the Lower South Island
A regular daily bi-directional passenger rail service from Aotearoa’s second largest city, Ōtautahi/ Christchurch to Ōtepoti/ Dunedin on onwards to Waihōpai/ Invercargill. The periodic Mainlander service between these cities has clearly demonstrated a latent market demand for such a service.
Mainlander at Tīmaru Station, Photo credit: Darren Davis
Any public transport for the West Coast
The South Island’s West Coast is the only region in Aotearoa to have no publicly funded public transport service and fairly barebones Total Mobility for people with disabilities. Transport poverty does not magically end west of the Southern Alps.
Better buses for outer Christchurch
The fast growing outer communities of greater Christchurch, such as Rangiora, Ravenswood, Pegasus, Prebbleton, Lincoln and Rolleston deserve better than at best half of a frequent route and often only an hourly not particularly fast and sometimes not particularly direct bus service. Improving this situation would be a good first step towards future mass rapid transit.
Non-sleeping trains for the Lower North Island
The wrapping up of the long and winding road of the Wairarapa Line upgrade in early 2027 should open the path to faster and more frequent bi-directional train services. Currently only one of the three trainsets used on this line operate outside of peak periods. Over on the Manawatū Line, the Capital Connection should awaken from its lengthy diurnal (and nocturnal) slumbers and run a second return trip on weekdays and at least a single return trip on weekends and public holidays. Waiting until 2030 for battery electric trains in the Lower North Island doesn’t cut the mustard when the market can be built up with better service sooner using existing rolling stock. Let sleeping trains awaken and do what trains are supposed to do – provide train service.
Don’t let sleeping trains lie. Former Capital Connection rolling stock stabled at Palmerston North Station. Photo credit: Darren Davis
A second public transport spine for the nation’s capital
A second public transport spine on the Quays is an indispensable prerequisite for increasing the role of buses within Wellington City Centre. Finding room for space-efficient bulk people moving on one of the capital’s finest traffic sewers doesn’t seem to be too much to ask.
Better buses for the Hawkes Bay
The Hawkes Bay did not win public transport lotto and didn’t even get the sort of quality of new bus network of other cities such as Te Papaioea/ Palmerston North and Whakatū/ Nelson. While a bunch of useful service improvements were made, this was only a fraction of what was originally proposed. The Hawkes Bay deserves better.
Baby steps towards passenger rail in the Bay
New Zealand’s reputation as a fly/drive country is epitomised by the Bay of Plenty which almost treats its low non-car use as some sort of perverse badge of dishonour. Getting passenger rail back to the Bay, as existed up to 2001, will be a long journey. But a long journey can only end if it begins. So it’s high time for the Bay of Plenty to begin that journey.
There would appear to be latent demand for passenger rail to the Bay of Plenty as attested by this one-off excursion service. Photo credit: Darren Davis
Te Huia as a permanent service
Five years after its launch, the Te Huia regional rail service between Hamilton and Auckland is still a trial. Up to the end of August 2026, Te Huia has carried 354,541 passengers which kinda indicates that there is some sort of demand for the service. Given that, making Te Huia permanent would seem to be a no-brainer.
Here’s hoping that Te Huia is going to continue sailing into the sunset with passengers on board. Photo credit: Darren Davis
City Rail Link
Auckland got its Christmas present early in the form of City Rail Link. So now is the time to build on the momentum and buzz generated by City Rail Link to make public transport much more part of the city’s furniture. At the moment, it’s a very nice add-on to what is still a very car-oriented city, notwithstanding the massive improvements to the city’s public transport over the past quarter century.
Two trains at Maungawhau. Photo credit: Greater Auckland
Northland
Aotearoa’s biggest roading project ever – the Warkworth to Te Hana Road of National [Party?!] Significance – doesn’t even cross the regional boundary from Auckland to Northland. But is seen by Northland as crucial to its economic future. At the same time, Northland’s deep-water port at Marsden Point is just about the only non-rail connected port in the entire country (although Gisborne’s rail connection is currently mothballed). The Marsden Point Rail Link, which would address this, is fully consented and pretty much all of its land requirements are now completed. If ever there was a shovel-ready project, the Marsden Point Rail Link is that project. (Ed: In June, KiwiRail selected three firms for a ‘design sprint’.)
The Marsden Point Rail Link. Image via KiwiRail
Final thoughts
While Santa mayn’t be able to stuff a train down my chimney (if indeed I had one!), it is election season which is its own form of silly season. The current state of campaigning indicates a sad lack of vision of what would make for a better Aotearoa/ New Zealand. And a better New Zealand would have more transport choices rather than our default setting of flying or driving. Here’s hoping!
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A “sad lack of vision” from the main parties, but I don’t think that applies to this part of the Green manifesto –
1. Transform public transport networks, including building mass rapid transit in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, and providing comprehensive bus lanes in all cities.
2. Invest in nationwide rapid rail for passengers and freight to connect regions and major cities and contribute to economic development and decarbonisation.
3. Introduce targeted subsidies for e-cargo bikes. Introduce e-bike sharing schemes in community hubs, to allow more families to save on transport costs.
4. Fund affordable, reliable, interregional rural bus services, and on-demand public transport, including by-Māori forMāori public transport to serve kōhanga reo and rural schools.
5. Extend Community Connect to provide free fares for students and apprentices, community service card holders, everyone under 18, and all Total Mobility card holders.
6. Enable the provision of transport services publicly instead of for profit by replacing the Public Transport Operating Model.
7. Create safe walking and biking routes to all community hubs including schools through building more bike lanes and safe crossings, and lowering speed limits near schools.
8. Implement a phase-out date for the import of fossil-fuel powered vehicles, build more EV (electric vehicle) charging stations, remove regulatory barriers to EV car-sharing and re-introduce incentives for EV uptake.
That’s a heck of a shopping list to walk into coalition negotiations with. In what order would you rank them from “die a ditch for” to “hohum, just thought we’d ask”? Additionally, where would you rank the call for JAG as Transport Minister and what would be on the “stop doing right now” list?
If Labour has to dump the remnants of the RoNS to pay for it, I’d expect it to be one of the easier concessions for them to make, but it also depends on the strength of the Green vote. Last week’s IPSOS poll found that the Green wealth tax plan had 65% support, which makes that more likely to be accepted by a new coalition too.
people finally waking up to the fact that the Greens tax policy would lower income tax rates for more than half of the population, eh?
We need any government of the future to continue electrifying our rail networks. Just keep going from Pukekohe.
Also, with Waitemata only requiring two through lines, what can we do with Platform Two and Three? Perhaps if Te Huia becomes electrificated when passing though Wiri, it could arrive directly to Waitemata? The Strand is stranded and should only be an emergency station, as it appears to have been designed.
Another idea could be simplifying the RED South City line. It currently causes some confusion, with it’s odd doubling on Te Tutahi Newmarket, leaving Newmarket still the worst station on the network, which the CRL should have resolved. The Onehunga Line is still hampering the network. Perhaps it could integrate into the RED line, with half hourly three train sets doing a Pukekohe to Onehunga, and vice versa. This would simplify our train network to an East West, which makes perfect sense currently, from any station it passes. Moving the Onehunga into the RED South line will return it’s full functionality, allowing it to pass through the CRL, and also potentially simplify the Penrose interchange, as as half hourly short train could only be Onehunga bound, and vice versa.
With only three directions and a half, we should only need TWO distinct lines. It is unnecessary complication, and many Onehunga persons would appreciate a Central City restoration of service.
Keep It Simple, reduce frustration and confusion, and our train numbers will continue to increase, which will help with the “business case” for further electrification to Kirikiriroa Hamilton, Tauranga, Te Whanganui a Tara Wellington Poneke. Both freight and passenger rail will benefit from this, and with no end in sight of less oil, and more expensive oil and gas, the logic of ending our little motu’s reliance on the big bullies makes obscene sense.
To get Back on Track, we need Rail. To Better Starts now, we need Rail. It does not matter what colour your political party is, electrified rail is the only thing that will save us from the machinations of mad old men in foreign lands.
bah humbug
Continuing electrification southward from Pukekohe would be the best Christmas present. Government should allocate funds on an annual basis for this to occur.
Next step would be to roll Intercity coaches, Kiwirail Transcenic trains and regional rail into one organisation to integrate all regional and long distance passenger trains and coaches. And there will need to be subsidies. Discontinue Kiwirail so called tourist trains and reallocate them to serving the people, who own Kiwirail anyway. For instance the present fleet which runs between Wellington and Auckland could run one return service daily between Hamilton and Palmerston North. They would link with Te Huia at Hamilton or the capital connection at Palmerston North or if that’s to difficult then maybe coaches. Another example would be for Te Huia to run to Tokoroa with connecting buses to Tauranga from Matamata and Roturua from Ti Rau and Taupo, Hastings and Napier from Tokoroa. I am sure you could think of other ways rail and long distance coaches could be combined to provide a coherent network. Now I am sure there will be resistances to this from established operators. But at the moment there is no competition anyway (except for cars and planes) so it might as well be Government controlled and subsidised. Obviously the ownership of the coaches and trains doesn’t need to be in Government control. I would suggest you look at how Vline is setup in Victotia as a guide to how this could be setup.
Love to see yet another beehive release today about another round of funding for the ‘critical services’ that are regional airlines.
Is there a reason the government refuses to fund regional passenger trains, or are they being willfully ignorant of the problem hoping it solves itself?
Very similar bias to airlines / airports as it is to road building. It’s what is currently happening, so it is ‘easy’ to continue to do so, even if it keeps costing more and more.
Starting something ‘new’ requires not only politicians thinking differently, but funders too, (councils, nzta, kiwirail etc).
So as above, easier to carry doing what we’re doing.
Not saying I support that at all, but I can see why it happens.
Look who’s PM and what his old job was and it’ll all make sense.
The ‘4 lanes to the planes’ transport strategy is great for funneling people in and out of the country, but giving people alternative options for travelling between neighbouring towns would be far more beneficial to those of us who want to stay in the country, especially beneficial to young people who don’t have a driver’s licence and older people who probably shouldn’t have one.
Or regional buses. Near by home town Te Anau, the council rebuilt the airport. Few million in capital costs, plus additional annual losses. The whole idea was to attract some regular regional flights. GFC happened and then it has never had one.
Meanwhile buses are the workhorse of the area, and the intercity stop is just a random bit of street. A regular timetabled service connecting regional centers would be enormously popular. In the summer there are several additional routes (in addition to the hundreds of buses to milford from queenstown every day) are already popular enough to be privately run. The issue is the small operators are just not stable enough for people to build habits and lifestyles around. That and winter is hard.
Wilfully ignorant? Deliberately ignoring? Purposely incompetent? Depends how much benefit of the doubt that you give them.
What happens at Newmarket is the key to how well the network will run. Good that your thinking about the various options. At the moment the SC trains which terminate there sit at platform two allowing easy cross platform transfer to and from other services before returning around the loop via Parnell. Probably best to leave it like that for now. At least you don’t have to go up and down the escalators to change trains. In fact because they leave both doors open you can shortcut from platform one to platform three or vice versa.
Re Newmarket, agreed with Royce that it’s not a bad setup, with easy interchange. And while extending the Red line to Onehunga may look good on the map, it would be very expensive: all the infrastructure beyond Penrose is designed for a maximum train length of three cars, so platforms would need substantial lengthening and the power supply upgrading to increase train length; and the single track and the number of level crossings (and the power supply) would make increasing train frequency problematic. That sort of money would be much better spent on the core high-frequency network, for example by grade separation of at least some of the several at-grade crossings that Red line trains have to cope with; or on segregation of passenger and freight trains..
As for Wellington, a second spine may be desirable, but moving buses to the edge of the city centre (where a large part of the catchment is water) from the centre itself – with passengers required to cross all six lanes of “one of the capital’s finest traffic sewers”, and with zero consideration of their safety and convenience – to exposed bus stops with shelters that can accommodate just 25% of peak passengers; all the while reducing the frequency of buses that take people to where they want to be, is definitely not the answer. Other solutions are available, including the much cheaper one of banning private vehicles from the Goilden Mile in the peaks – as suggested by the AA! – not to mention decongestion charging to create space (and funding) for proper mass transit along the Harbour Quays rather than just part-time bus lanes with inadequate stops.
fix out of sequence subdivisions (eg fast track planning bypasses) by requiring the developer to fund railway and Active Transport connections.
New track is a very unusual event. It shouldnt be.
My biggest wish is to improve Regional rail and make it easier to travel between cities without driving.
Te Huia is a good start but right now is just a way for Hamilton commuters to get to Auckland. If Auckland actually bothered to contribute to it we could improve it to be more viable for JAFAs to use it as well.
Then electrify it. Either by finishing the Pukekohe to Hamilton section or using one of the battery trains Wellington will be getting. Then it can come into the Auckland City Centre and use one of the now-vacant middle platforms at Waitemata instead of the embarrassment that is The Strand. Ditto for the Northern Explorer.
Eventually extending it to Tauranga and maybe even Whangarei would be nice too.
Fast Track should be for Track, Fast.
I would really like to see the restoration of the overnight Auckland – Wellington train service. It’s one I used often when it was running.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be a luxury cabin-style experience. At the least I think a coach or two of simple curtained bunks such as you find on overnight trains in India would cater to the budget conscious traveller.
Nah.
Rail is great for bulk cargo. And self loading commuters in bulk is what it is extremly good at.
As evidenced by the huge loads of rail borne commuters into Wellington now since electrification about 90 years ago, and now more recently Auckland just over 10 years ago.
Inspite of the National Party stalwants, such as Stephen Joyce doing their best to thwart it.
Christchurch and Hamilton are now such obvious recipients commuter rail.
And Hamilton, combined with Tauranga and Auckland are such obvious targets, well ahead of Palmerston North and Masterton who have already the success of regional rail.
Modern night trains with lay-flat seating and some standard class seat options would be ideal for this longer journey – aimed more at travel needs.
Modern night trains are a realistic alternative to having to fly, and easy to implement (most infrastructure still in place).
These trains could either continue through to Whangarei upon arrival into Auckland or return as a premium day service back to Wellington, making for excellent use of equipment.