Williamson wrong about the City Rail Link
The City Rail Link being a smash hit from day one should be a positive thing, right? It seems not, if you’ve always been opposed to it. I recently came across an opinion piece from current Auckland Councillor (and former Transport Minister) Maurice Williamson.…
76 Comments Sorting event transport at Kingsland
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.…
The shortlisted options for congestion charging
The road to congestion pricing (aka “time-of-use charging”) is certainly not a fast one. So far, we’re at nearly a decade of official investigations into the idea. (It’s also over a decade and a half since the question was first raised on our predecessor, Transportblog – and we’ve covered the topic regularly since then, again and again)
Granted, a decade still seems like quite a short amount of time compared to some transport projects.…
Options for Inner West level crossing removals
The City Rail Link already proving a success, and we also know from many other projects, from rail to cycleways, that early bursts of growth aren’t a one-time thing, often taking many years for potential uptake to be fully realised.
There’s currently still a lot of capacity in the network, with trains nowhere near packed out; and Auckland Transport plans to increase services to 8 trains per hour per direction soon.…
Still chuffed: CRL Week One success
The City Rail Link has a bit of a secret power. It doesn’t just transport you around Auckland, but even further afield. Standing on the platform at Te Waihorotiu at certain times in the middle of the peak, with up to four trains turning up and departing within a five-minute period, it gives off the vibe of a real metro and can make you feel like you’re in a city far away.…
Rail ridership stats ahead of the CRL opening
The City Rail Link is being officially opened today – as in, a ribbon-cutting, with trains commencing from Sunday. So with passenger services just two days away, what better time to take a look at look at how the rail network has been performing, to help provide a bit of a benchmark for the transformation the CRL delivers.…
Westgate Te Waiarohia Station Opens
The Northwest Busway reached a major milestone yesterday with the official opening of the first permanent piece of busway infrastructure – the Westgate Te Waiarohia Station. (See details here about services, and ministerial media release here.)
The rapid transit service that will run on the future Northwest Busway – the WX1 – was launched in late 2023 with interim stations on the Te Atatū and Lincoln Rd motorway interchanges and just some basic bus-stops at Westgate.…
CRL Visits and Timetables
While we still wait to find out the date the City Rail Link will finally open, Auckland Transport yesterday released the timetables that will be used, and announced public ‘First Look’ events at the stations. First Look Events
AT will be opening up the stations, one weekend at a time, for people to look through.…
Western Line Level Crossing Early Challenges and Feedback
A few months ago Auckland Transport finally started talking about the need to replace level crossings on the Western Line – something I think will become glaringly obvious in a few months once the City Rail Link opens, especially when frequencies increase, likely early next year.…
RoNS Reality Finally Hits Home
In something of a Matariki miracle, the government has finally acknowledged that their mega-road programme isn’t feasible (as we’ve been pointing out for quite some time), and have scaled it back accordingly.
Transport Minister Chris Bishop has been hinting for some months that this was probably going to happen, with the Roads of National Significance (RoNS) programme alone expected to cost over $50 billion, but it’s good to finally have it confirmed as of last Thursday:
Transport Minister Chris Bishop is welcoming the publication of NZTA’s Major Transport Projects Pipeline, setting out the phasing for projects including the Roads of National Significance and major public transport projects.…
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