It feels like the media have been waiting for a ‘City Rail Link failure’ story – and this weekend they finally got one, kind of, as the weekend saw another big event and another challenge with post-match event trains. Auckland Transport and Eden Park are blaming each other for the issues, as 1News reports:
Frustrated rugby fans booed passing trains at Eden Park last night as delays to city-bound services left thousands queuing after the All Blacks thrashed the Wallabies.
Eden Park bosses are now calling for “urgent attention” to transport infrastructure around the stadium as Auckland Transport (AT) blames a late closure of the nearby level crossing for leaving some fans waiting long stretches for a train.
Stadium chief executive Nick Sautner told 1News: “Our patrons and our hirers are paying for a service, and the service needs to be better.”
…..
One described “huge queues to get into the city and not a single train”.
They said in the time three trains had left for Ōtāhuhu, none had left for the city, and two trains marked “out of service” had passed through the station.
“They keep saying ‘five mins’,” one said. “Shocker.”
Another said the situation was “munted”, saying the crowd started booing passing trains.
Auckland Transport was running a new special event-service pattern for the first time on Saturday, which included a Kingsland to Ōtāhuhu service.
One issue is that Auckland Transport keeps trying to put on these bespoke services. But I wonder if they wouldn’t have been better just to run any extra trains as normal E-W line trains, and rely on people taking the opportunity to transfer at Karanga-a-Hape, with increased S-C line trains to help clear the crowds. Doing this also would have meant that everyone travelling towards the city wasn’t crowded on to a single platform.
For their part, Auckland Transport appear to be blaming Eden Park for not implementing its own traffic management plan properly:
AT general manager of rail services Mark Lambert said traffic management problems were the primary reason behind longer waits.
“East-West trains to the city and east were not ready to leave immediately after the game because a delay to closing Morningside Dr level crossing to cars meant trains could not get in place to line up at Kingsland station on time,” he said in a statement.
“The timing of the Morningside Dr closure was part of the agreed traffic management plan, which AT does not implement, and it was disappointing this caused delays to trains.
“This meant that some fans were waiting up to 40 minutes for an East-West train.”
…..
Lambert said waits for other trains and special event buses had been about 10 minutes, and the “vast majority” of fans were cleared within an hour.
He said 15,000 people caught trains, out of 19,710 who used special event transport.
Hopefully, both AT and Eden Park can learn from this so that we don’t see a repeat for future events. However, given this isn’t the first time we’ve seen these kinds of issues, I won’t be holding my breath.
The reality is there’s not anywhere in the world where tens of thousands of people can exit out of a stadium all at once and not experience delays of some kind.
So, while the CRL has improved the rail network significantly, there’s still a lot more to do – and Kingsland ultimately needs a more permanent solution. Eden Park’s CEO Nick Sautner is now calling for this urgently, but of course wants the public to pay for it. From the 1News report:
Following the match, Eden Park chief executive Nick Sautner issued a statement calling on Auckland Council and AT to give “urgent attention” to transport infrastructure around the country’s national stadium.
“It’s magnificent to have a venue like Eden Park, but we expect a world-class experience from the street to the seat, and that’s not the case currently.”
Speaking to 1News today, he said the “street to seat experience” had been compromised by infrastructure at Kingsland and Morningside stations.
…..
“Now we know that’s a new piece of infrastructure. There’s going to be teething problems, but there’s no question that Kingsland railway station is now no longer fit for purpose and needs a review.”
Sautner said about 40% of Eden Park’s operating costs related to transport.
“Given the significant cost involved, we expect the transport services and infrastructure supporting our events to reflect that expenditure and deliver the standard of experience fans should expect from a world-class city,” he said.
“The CRL is a gamechanger for Auckland, but we need to ensure the infrastructure connecting people to the stadium can support the opportunities it creates.”
…..
“From our side, our patrons and our hirers are paying for a service, and the service needs to be better, so I’m encouraging all stakeholders to get together and work through a solution, whether it be a short-term solution, given the calendar of content we’ve got over the next six months.
“But then also, let’s put together an infrastructure plan for the next five years for this precinct to ensure that we can get the value of capture and creation in this area.”
In the news report, Sautner is said to want the station to have additional platforms and other upgrades. He also complains that a pedestrian bridge over Sandringham Rd – linking the stadium directly into the station – wasn’t built for the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
They have proposed a bridge as part of their Eden Park 2.1 upgrade, but it seems they want Auckland Council to pay for it.
A bridge over Sandringham Rd included as part of the Eden Park 2.1 proposal.
I’m not sure how just adding a bridge over Sandringham Rd will cut it for moving crowds. If anything, surely it’s better to have thousands of people waiting on the (closed to traffic) road, than stuck shuffling across a bridge above the road and the station.
So let’s look at what some of the other, more permanent solutions might be…
Closing the Morningside Crossing
Auckland Transport’s comments about the Morningside Drive crossing being the source of the issue serves to highlight the importance of seeing that crossing permanently removed.
Recently – just prior to this part of the organisation being moved back to council – AT consulted on options to do just that. The alternatives currently being considered range from just closing the crossing to traffic altogether and only providing pedestrian access to Morningside Station, to building a grade-separated traffic crossing slightly further east. As I wrote at the time, it feels to me that the latter (aka Option C) is the one they’ll likely go for.
The problem, of course, is there is no money budgeted for any of the options.
Options under consideration for remediating the Morningside Drive crossing. Image via Auckland Transport. (Note: this is the crossing featured in a recent Greens announcement, at which a driver was shown driving around the barrier arms while the bells were ringing.)
It sounds like this would at least improve on Saturday’s issue of not being able to get enough trains to the platforms as fast as intended. But it’s still many years in the future, and it doesn’t solve all issues with post-event transport – most notably that even if you have trains at the platform, it does takes time to load people onto them.
A new generation of trains
One issue with our existing trains is they’re more designed for a commuter service than the high-intensity use you’ll see in an event situation. With long carriages – longer than on many trains you’ll find overseas – and only two doors per carriage, it takes time to get 1000 people on.
Overseas, it’s quite common for trains to have up to 3 doors per car because it helps to speed up boarding and alighting times.
We know that as Auckland’s rail network continues to develop and services eventually increase, we’ll need more trains than we currently have. We also know that the fleet of 95 three-car trains we currently do have is at (or close to) the upper limit of what our existing train maintenance facility can cope with. And, that facility is also designed specifically with our current trains in mind.
Auckland Transport has even suggested that a new maintenance facility will be needed at some point, likely somewhere out towards Swanson.
So it seems that these can and should be combined: buy a new generation of train better suited to the future of the Auckland network, including with three doors per car – and build a new maintenance facility to service them.
This is of course neither a cheap nor a short-term solution.
Perth’s new C-Series trains have 3-doors per car.
One shorter-term solution that could be implemented to eke a little more capacity out of the current trains is to change the internal configuration of the carriages, by converting some of the perpendicular (forward-and-backward-facing) seating to parallel seating (along the sides of the train). This would allow for more standing room.
Note that the middle car of each three-car train has parallel seating between the doors – this layout could be replicated in the other two cars.
Changing the layout would result in a loss of only 10 seats per car, but would gain more than double that lost capacity from the increased standing space.
Lengthen the platforms to allow for 9-car trains
Another option for increasing the capacity of trains is to lengthen the platforms at Kingsland to allow for 9-car trains. The CRL stations are already designed for this, so the additional special event service that Auckland Transport ran on Saturday between Kingsland and Waitemata could be repeated using 9-car trains to help clear crowds faster.
Extending the platforms at Kingsland for 9-car trains isn’t a quick, easy or cheap job though. So, if we were going to think about doing that …
Build a proper event station
…to me the real long term objective is to build a proper event station. In most places overseas, event stations have multiple platforms and tracks to enable more capacity, by allowing for multiple trains to be loading passengers or moving trains at the same time.
The problem is that doing this at Kingsland would be a significant undertaking, including acquiring and demolishing a number of nearby villas in order to move Sandringham Rd to create enough space for a larger station.
I have no idea how much this would cost, but it seems like hundreds of millions wouldn’t be out of the realms of possibility. Which brings us back around to the key issue: money, and who pays.
Funding for the ‘peak of the peak’
A big problem with many of the solutions for event transport is that it is very much a ‘peak of the peak’ situation. That is, while it’s extremely busy, it’s only for a very short time – and in the case of events, not that often.
Events can certainly be a bit of a gateway for encouraging people who don’t normally use public transport to give it a go. And a good event experience will encourage some of those people to start to use it more often for other trips.
However, there is still so much more investment needed on just our existing rail network alone. Level crossing removal, more sections of third and fourth track, improved station access, signalling upgrades to allow higher frequencies, are just some examples of areas that need investment in the future to improve services. And these improvements will benefit people every day of the year.
So the question very much becomes: is it really worth spending potentially hundreds of millions of dollars on solutions that might only be needed a handful of times per year?
Eden Park’s response yesterday indicates that they want ratepayers to pick up the tab for addressing issues that only exist because of their business. Surely they should be helping to pay a significant chunk of the costs of a long-term solution, rather than demanding yet another handout?
I still find it somewhat mind-boggling that funding a proper event solution wasn’t a requirement of the stadium debate of just a couple of years ago – you know, the process that resulted in Eden Park being selected as Auckland’s ‘Main Stadium’.
Let’s not forget Light Rail
Finally, while there will always be a huge number of people wanting to use the trains to get home, it’s also worth remembering that light rail on Dominion Rd could help with events too. A station at Eden Valley would be only a 400-500m walk from the stadium, and could help carry thousands more people home after events.
The original relatively low-key light rail vision for Auckland: a surface route along Dominion Road, such as you see in Sydney these days.
Header image: screenshot from 1News coverage; see also similar images all over the internet.
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I wouldn’t have thought that Eden Park would have the legal authority to temporarily close Morningside Drive. My reading of the comment from Mark Lambert about AT not being responsible for the closure, was that this is something that Auckland Council now manages, as they are the Road Controlling Authority.
Private organisations close roads all over the network every day. As part of Eden Park’s application to hold big events they will have a condition that they have to get a traffic management plan approved. Eden Park prepare a traffic management plan, AT (now AC) approve the plan. Eden Park implement it.
This is how if works for contractors doing roadworks, for utilities companies, for construction projects that need to use the road reserve, etc
We need to think about how the money come ! It seems that the Transport Operator never feels the burden of money as they ask for it, it will come! How them responsible as we pay to hire them, let them feels the pain and services will improve.
What?
I’m not sure I understand the issue. Doesn’t the Morningside Dr level crossing close itself when a train comes? How did this cause “in the time three trains had left for Ōtāhuhu, none had left for the city, and two trains marked “out of service” had passed through the station.”
During events at Eden Park, the Morningside Drive crossing is closed for an extended period and traffic diverted along New North Road and Sainsbury Road.
How did people get to and from Eden Park events three decades, ago?
When rail was only a few rail cars terminating at The Strand, and bus services were far more rudimentary. There is a significant degree of incompatibility in rolling stock and operational requirements for the ordinary long haul commutes, as far as Swanson and Pukekohe into the CBD, and catering for huge volumes of the occasional events.
And who should front up with the differing funding requirements?
A Dominion Road Surface Light Rail route, should remain on the table as the preferred future mode to increase people carrying capacity in, and out of the central isthmus area.
They drove. It didn’t used to have the same capacity.
If you want people to use PT it has to be reasonable. I don’t think there is any decent excuse for running more trains to Otahuhu than the city.
Eden Park held 60,000 in the 1950s and 1960s and even in the 1980s held 47,000. You’re right, people just drove although going back far enough I imagine people caught the tram. What has changed is of course the city has got much larger.
Wow I didn’t know that. I first went to Eden Park about 30 years ago for cricket and my recollection was it being small and crap (the current main stands didn’t exist).
In the 50s and 60s it was a grass banked oval with a few grandstands. Of course with safety regulations back then they had no problem cramming the majority of the crowd standing on the grass bank.
Modern stadiums require a lot more space for people to move around than their predecessors.
Back in the day lots of us got the bus into downtown and then walked to Eden Park.
A good number probably walked home, or rode bikes too.
Another easy fix is the dwell time. Train turns up, doors take an eternity to open, people get on, doors take an eternity to close, train moves on.
On the London Underground the doors opened and closed almost instantly.
“The reality is there’s not anywhere in the world where tens of thousands of people can exit out of a stadium all at once and there not be delays of some kind.”
The MCG in Melbourne packs in 40,000-50,000 thousand spectators twice per week during the footy season and moves them all with PT!
True, but Richmond station has 10 platforms serving five different track pairs so it is no wonder that it is incredibly more efficient.
I bet it still takes a while though. I used to go Homebush in Sydney for games and if it was a full house and you wanted to leave by train straight away, it probably took 30mins from joining the (orderly) queue to getting on the train.
I was blown away by how efficiently Perth Stadium station operated, even though yes I still stood in a queue for a while.
That’s a much bigger station than Kingsland, and even though other improvements can help the situation I think the station itself is in need of upgrades.
In the interim, and if they are still going to use Morningside as West bound only, there can be some improvements to access to the station. After the Wahs game we were directed down Rosemary Terrace- no lights and uneven footpaths and no staff- obviously with many people walking down the road we also had cars trying to leave at the same time. There was no coordination of people waiting for the trains so just a mass muddle of people who do what people do and try and push in/jump queues etc. At Sydney after State of Origin we were all funnelled into lines ( like at a bank) and it worked really well.
I’m hopeful that the new ped bridge @Morningside would help with queue jumping. Agreed re road closures and lights, they underbake the closures on that side.
The best option : Just move Eden Park to the water front – It has served its purpose in its current location. 20 years of talking about it hasn’ t solved any problems. Continued investment building on the CRL opportunities in the central city and leaving KIngsland to be the “suburban ” mixed use hub that it is, is a far better outcome for the city. Could be sorted in 5 years – quicker and cheaper than reto-fitting the Kingsland transit infrastructure. Eden Park = squarepeg round hole. It doesnt fit which ever way you render it.
It’s easier and cheaper to rebuild a rail station than to relocate a stadium. Also, a waterfront stadium isn’t going to happen so why continue to flog this dead horse?
And Eden Park Trust don’t want to move.
As where? “The waterfront” is so super vague, there is literally no where good.
Probably the best option is over the railyards, but then you’re looking at massive expense to get clear of rail ops with some huge structure, probably at least a $1b before you’ve even leased the land or built a stadium.
Adding another pair to Kingsland, building a Wembley-style over bridge with Sandringham Rd below and grade separating Morningside will still be cheaper.
You say “just” as if it’s a simple solution and not 5 years and multi billions of dollars lol
Resisting the urge to comment on Eden Park’s constant begging for a handout (given how much public money has already been spent on them and has been committed for in the future)…
They are right in that improvements are needed, but yes, they should chip in too.
I actually think that this is not the first instance of a “CRL” or PT/train failure, or even an AT failure, this reads to be the first failure of the new Road Controlling Authority governance system, with Council now controlling Morningside Dr. Looks like a communication failure between the two, and probably if anything the fault of some ticket clipping Traffic Management Company like STMS.
They essentially just needed to put up some portable metal fences, park some trucks at the intersection, exactly what they did after the Warriors.
But this speaks to another level of how stupid our transport governance has become:
KiwiRail owns the tracks
AT owns the trains that run on them
AucklandOneRail operates the trains
Auckland Council operates the roads that run across them.
AC contracts out to Traffic management companies to close/detour them.
Genius. What could possibly go wrong.
Note that the Warriors game happened when AT were still the RCA.
There’s a reason we made AT the behemoth it was. Why Wayne Brown felt this would be a good solution is truly mind boggling.
Oh baby it’s only going to get worse from here.
At least until we do another expensive 180 in 10-15 years.
Eden Park held 60,000 in the 1950s and 1960s and even in the 1980s held 47,000. You’re right, people just drove although going back far enough I imagine people caught the tram. What has changed is of course the city has got much larger.
Wembley used have a walkway with plywood walls with cops lining the top of it. When you got to the station a line of police acted as human flow gates. On command they would turn sideways and you walked between them, then to close they would face the crowd and link arms. All the while a policeman with a loud hailer was leading the crowd singing ‘if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”
But the trains were all lined up and filled and on their way quickly.
I thought that was a dig at Auckland Council not Mt Eden, as he (ex AT CEO) mentioned they now have responsibility for “roads”.
Morningside Drive grade separation is looking like a variation on Option C. Consensus appears to agree on an overbridge about 150 metres East of Morningside Drive directly South of the intersection of Western Springs and New North Roads, avoiding the need for a steep ramp north of the rails but requiring a ramp down south of the bridge. Rather than connecting with local roads (Rossmay Terrace) it would be better to bend South West and run parallel to and adjacent to the tracks and link directly with Morningside Drive just South of the existing level crossing. This would require acquisition/demolition of several buildings but so would a connection with Rossmay which would also require a 80-90 metre ramp stuffing up access to quite a few apartments and commercial properties. Council funding of about $600 million for level crossing removals is committed to three new overbridges at Takanini which will be completed over the next 5-6 years so there is no funding for the Western Line level crossings until 2032 – unless Government gets serious about making a contribution.
Surely the solution is then to build Option A, promise Option C eventually, then see if it’s actually needed once the other Inner West Crossings are completed and there is spare budget. As solves the issue the quickest and the only difference between A and C is an additional road bridge. Personally I think there is no need for it, there are easy detours available for cars (easier the longer the distance they’re travelling).
agree
Problem is Morningside Drive is part of the Frequent Transit Network as well. It wouldn’t just affect private cars.
Yep, but the various 22’s shouldn’t go to St Lukes and instead continue along NNR. It went to St Lukes back when the OuterLink was less reliable and there was no 65, now it’s pretty easy for people to change buses as there are two frequent routes going along to St Lukes along St Luke’s Rd from NNR.
The existing 22 variants don’t even interchange well as they stop on the wrong side of the mall compared to the rest of the services, and the 20 loop can go an extra block to cover the couple of stops so there is no loss of service. Plus the affected area is only a short walk from NNR/Morningside Station anyway.
The advantages of moving the 22 variants is faster travel time down the NNR corridor (no detours/getting stuck in traffic) along a multi lane route that could easily be a bus lane rather than a clearway at peak, and saving the vast extra cost of a road bridge either until later or never depending on budgets.
It’s disappointing to see a clickbait headline in the likes of the NZ Herald but unsurprising as that is very much their modus operandi these days. Sensationism sells. Remarkably, everyone complaining seem to think 45 mins to an hour is horrifically bad. So many people have never encountered crowds leaving sports events in places like London. An hour is what you’d expect to get out of an event and onto a train. Eden Park and AT need to make that known and normalise it.
There were severe delays to East-West trains on Saturday. There should be a constant flow of trains through Kingsland station after an event and it seems like that didn’t happen.
It was the same after the Edinburgh Tattoo earlier this year, we waited for an hour and there were only 2 or 3 trains towards the city in that time, which just isn’t acceptable.
Around about 15,000 travelled by train. Presuming a decent chunk were heading west then maybe 10 – 12,000 were heading east. With a train able to carry 1000 people, this should be able to be cleared using 10 – 12 trains.
With two platforms and the right scheduling this should be largely done in 30 mins. Something clearly went wrong on Saturday if empty trains were passing through Kingsland.
Funny thing is, Eden Park used to get crowds of up to 60,000 for some games back in the 1950’s and early 60’s, before the trams were discontinued.
Many transport historians note that Kingsland on big-match days was one of the highest-intensity operations on the Auckland tramway system, and crowds often dispersed surprisingly quickly because spectators weren’t all trying to reach a single railway station or car park. The tram passengers were distributed across dozens of routes throughout the city.
The ironic thing is that when Auckland closed its trams in 1956, the same year as the record 61,240 crowd, Eden Park lost what was arguably its most efficient mass-transit link.
The station at Kingsland should be adjusted to allow 9 car trains at these peak times. Park the trains with an overhang at each end, or provide a platform extension for peak times. Take the bulk of people to the city stations for dispersal.
Why do they want a bridge across Sandringham Rd? Seems like a waste of money. For small events that don’t justify road closures, the existing lights are fine.
For every other event better to close the road and use it for pedestrians. If they’re wanting buses to go that way, instead board the buses going that way on the corner of Wairepo Swamp Walk and Sandringham, and have them lined up between Kingsland Station and WSW. Also spreads out the arrivals more allowing better crowd management.
Morningside they always underdo the road closures, people shouldn’t be driving through thousands of pedestrians. They really need to close McDonald, Ethel, Shaw, Rossmay and Morningside Drive/McDonald to Morningside Drive north side of the tracks to all traffic for the after event rush. Plus improve lighting. The queue jumping at the crossing should be sorted with the new bridge.
I think the solution for train routes post event is stack as many trains as possibly Morningside to Kingsland as they do, have a shuttle train going from Mt Eden to Newmarket (serving Grafton), shuttle train Onehunga Line (Penrose). Then run the EW line from the NNR side of Kingsland Station, through CRL and onto the Eastern Line. Meanwhile the SC city starts from the Sandringham Rd side of Kingsland Station, also runs through CRL (but clockwise on the anti clockwise tracks), then at Quay Park turns towards Parnell still on the anti clockwise tracks to P2/3 Newmarket, then switches to the correct tracks.
Meanwhile EW non rush direction goes instead of to Britomart to Newmarket P4 to terminate, and SC non peak terminates at P1 sharing with the Grafton shuttle. Western Line finishes @Baldwin city bound with a bus along NNR to Morningside/Kingsland/Mt Eden and back for the odd off-peak passengers not related to the event at that time. Then the city bound track of the Western Line is stacked with trains to fill Morningside, where there is always a train filling while the other platform has train leaving, train arriving, then switches like it is at present.
This way means both platforms at Kingsland go via CRL, there are 0 junction limitations as no conflicts on the network bar P1 Newmarket, which could be replaced by a shuttle bus if it’s an issue, and all trips are still possible for the hour or less of event timetable after the game. Pre game it should be just normal timetable with bigger trains and extra services as arrivals are more spread out.
This would be a massive pain for anyone using PT at the time and not attending the event in Eden Park, don’t you think?
I really think more frequent regular trains and a few (perhaps many) shuttle busses to convenient locations would be the best option.
Only for an hour for people taking trips to the CBD, and being brutally honest, this is typically at the time of night where things are mostly empty, there is no way they should be prioritised over 10’s of thousands.
They already do this for the Western Line/Onehunga Line, but allowing CRL to run two tracks from Kingsland to Britomart will move significantly more than delaying a few people on other lines.
Before the event, beefed up regular schedules are fine with longer trains and more services. After it doesn’t cut it. They already use an event timetable with the rail network severed but it’s not enough.
Remember it’s 20k (the other 20k buses/takes other transport) needing to move on the rail network within that hour. Probably 2 hours of disruption tbf just because of staging beforehand, but regardless it’s harming a few people’s trips to save tens of thousands of people time, it’s a no brainer.
Don’t know – a BIG part of getting people to use PT is reliability. If you throw this away during some events, it will just make people default to driving again (“but what if there is a massive game at Eden Park?!”).
There can be *additional* trains with special destinations, but the regular schedule should still apply (of course with improved frequencies).
I suspect given the time it takes to load trains at Kingsland that even if both platforms go to the CRL then only one track in the CRL would be needed.
Probably better to have everything being E-W (or terminating at Waitemata) with frequent S-C trains coming through the CRL in the other direction to ensure passengers heading south have an easy transfer in the CRL.
I’m sold on your idea actually. I think mine was solving a problem we didn’t have if one track can handle the trains. Which given the Western Line from Morningside operates essentially the same way, no reason Kingsland would be different.
A bridge across Sandringham Road could provide a direct, continuous active mode connection from Eden Park to New North Road via Kingsland station. Join it Walters Road and you have yourself a low-traffic route from Kingsland Town Centre to Eden Valley.
Eden Park is in an existing urban area so the most useful infrastructure will be the type that is useful all year around, irrespective of match days.
In terms of unrelated to events, sure, would be nice, but there are plenty of places where building a bridge would make a bigger difference. I don’t think a business case would stack up.
A bridge across Sandringham for events doesn’t make sense for an event, as the pedestrian volumes are too high and far easier/cheaper to just close the road. If buses and pedestrians are conflicting after an event, move the event buses that go via the NNR/Sandringham intersection to start near Trent Bray, removes the conflict without the cost and is better for crowd management.
It seems to me extending the platforms 70 -80 metres for 9 car trains is not that complicated . Particularly if you did 40 metres each end .
The other option would be extending the nearside one to allow 2 6 car trains to berth at the same time . one filling and leaving the 2nd one leaving shortly afterwards.
Swanson bound trains are mentioned , these were supposed to be leaving from Morningside, did this not happen??? or were they empty trains from the city going through to the crossovers to come back into Kingsland on the right track ???.
There are various tricks you can employ with very long platforms to provide (in effect) two separate platforms in tandem, with a scissors crossover between them. This can be used to squeeze extra platforms into a thin corridor and is useful when the bulk of the demand comes from one side of the tracks.
Cambridge station in the UK has this arrangement and it works well, though there are admittedly more tracks and and platforms to play with than there are at Kingsland (and a lot more space too). The long platform (in effect two platforms) at Cambridge is 470m long.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_railway_station
I think people were just not paying attention post match either. The crowd was used to a west Auckland or a britomart direct only train. I caught a southern line train from Eden park, left my seat at full time, straight onto the southern line departure from Kingsland and was getting off at ellerslie about 30 mins after the final whistle. I found it to be fantastic. However the crowd was piling up around the kingsland britomart train, it made finding the entrance to the tunnel, to the other platform very difficult and as a result when my train left there was no one standing and even free seats despite the crowds.
It seems like the issue was mainly with East-West trains
Assuming acquisition is required for a Morningside Drive overbridge; I propose a new merged station under that bridge. An enhanced event-mode four platform station. The existing Morningside station platforms can be removed and space used for stabling. The bridge will presumably be compliant for accessible grades etc. and can be designed with crowd movement planning built into it. Possibly paired with a new station on the straight stretch of track by Stormont Place (for better station spacings).