No date set for start of light rail construction – Transport Minister Michael Wood
Transport Minister Michael Wood isn’t committing to a start date for construction on Auckland’s long-awaited light rail project, but says “no one is more committed” to getting it started than he is.
Groan. More disruption.
Yay.
I’ve lived in Auckland for 40 years, 25 of those years in central Auckland, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt it’s never been a shittier time to live here.
The gridlock, the fucking gridlock, just kills me. I don’t even own a car, never have! I do what I’m supposed to do, I walk, I catch public transport or I ride share, and yet every day, every single fucking day I am stuck in gridlock.
While I’m stuck in gridlock, I see more and more friends and family who can’t afford to live in the city that they were born into.
The horror of that fucking Train tunnel has steadily destroyed the CBD well before the pandemic hit it. The train tunnel disruption is now spreading like a cancer to K rd (where we all have to religiously smile and say how much we love the new fucking bike lanes in case a militant cyclist lynch mob fire bombs your reputation) and the cancer has managed to spread all the way to Mt Eden where the Mt Eden Train station is now out of action FOR FOUR FUCKING YEARS!
The inability to cross roads easily has destroyed the CBD, it is a husk of its former self and businesses will die off, it’s as simple as that and the pandemic will make that die off a mass extinction event.
I am passionately pro public transport, but this deeply flawed Train tunnel is being done on the fucking cheap (like everything in NZ), meaning the brand spanking new Train link that has disrupted and destroyed businesses over years and years and years will hit capacity shortly after opening.
That’s right, all this disruption, all this damage has been done for a transit system that will shortly hit capacity once competed.
If we are going to destroy so much of the CDB, surely it should have been for a transit system that was future proofed?
I’d given up on the CBD a long time ago, watching my favourite parts of it twist in agony is just another sadness to add to a year marked in sadness. Christ knows what ripping up Dominion Road will do.
But yay, Michael Wood is now running light rail so the failure will feel nicer.
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Yes well apart of upgrading a major arterial road is you make previously 2 lane side streets into a one way artery either side of the upgraded road but permanently to ease congestion along dominion road.
So again, instead of having 2 way traffic we should be building oneway main arteries.
Not only that passenger rail has to be sunk below auckland city.
A new Tunnel. A new Harbour Bridge. A Desalination plant wouldn’t hurt.
The boundaries of Auckland’s art prestincts need to be redefined and funded by the state.
All the hospitals and major malls have to be linked by passenger trains so we can spread car parks further a part.
All this stuff has to be centraly planned by Jacinda and Grant Robertson. Everyone else had there shot and blew it.
Jacinda and Grant couldn’t plan a piss up in a brewery. Why hold faith in such incompetent academics. Jacinda isn’t an urban planner, and Grant isn’t an engineer. In what cognitive void do you come up with the logistics of your thinking Sam?
I can literally prove to you that John Key dialed in the urbane planning and academic numbers. Run away now caption what abouts.
” Jacinda isn’t an urban planner, and Grant isn’t an engineer.” And in what universe are those two actually doing the development work? How hard is it to understand that this job is being done by the same Bureaucrats that are doing their utmost to kneecap the current government? This simplistic “Jacinda did it” drivel is starting to get really old.. The nats have always had a good relationship with their staff, quite simply because they were all on the same page… Every Labour government we’ve had has had the fourth estate and the civil service to contend with when trying to rebalance the abuses of the colonial power base.. We have an opportunity to have an influence right now, but all I’m seeing and hearing is self absorbed whining as a rule… So we’ll be welcoming a tory govt back soon on the basis of our own lack of maturity and common sense.. Well done NZ.. Another perfectly good opportunity wasted… I was a teenager in the workforce when a stopwork meeting could, and did, fill venues the size of Mt smart stadium on a regular basis.. try that now and see what you get.. All I can say is that it won’t be pretty..
But people are making lots of computer digits out of all the delays and confusion and gridlock, Martyn.
If it’s any consolation, the last time I was in New Plymouth gridlock was a regular daily occurrence. In fact, when I left it was getting to the point of there being almost no time during the normal working day when traffic lights weren’t green with no one (except cyclists and pedestrians) moving.
It’s called city planning, and its done by ‘experts’.
Life in the country is great. No traffic lights, no parking fees, and no real need to even use a car most of the time.
I personally think you are f’ing mad to be still living in Auckland, pollution capital and bullshit capital of NZ. I guess something has trapped you there.
Never mind, the collapse of industrial civilisation that is certain to occur over the coming years will solve most of the ‘problems’ industrial humans have caused, including including internal combustion engines and population overshoot.
Until the financial system goes kaput and the energy depletion gets super-serious, the criminals and clowns that constitute the political-commercial sector of NZ society will keep working away at their boondoggles, making everything that matters worse.
Very relevant to this discussion is the appallingly bad debt-to-income level of so many borrowers. it would not take much of a disturbance to business-as-usual to cause the house-of-cards economy to come crashing down.
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/109793/david-hargreaves-says-alarming-rise-high-debt-income-ratio-borrowing-highlights-why
This project was originally sold to us as a much needed rail connection to the Auckland International Airport. But it definitely won’t be connecting to the airport anytime soon. (if ever).
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/the-challenge-to-build-light-rail-in-auckland-will-be-tested-on-dominion-rd/HW4HTWYBADXAP6IATGTH6MWCEY/
So what’s it all about?
Don’t we ever learn?
Doesn’t anyone remember the vanity project that was the Viaduct Basin light rail?
Developers thought it would be hoot to get rate payers to fund this vanity project to give their condo development a bit of a boho look. This vanity project served its purpose, and now despite all the big talk about extending the viaduct light rail down Quay street to the Britomart transport hub, has been moth balled and quietly forgotten about.
Now again there is talk of developers cashing in. With plans for multi-level condominiums down the length of Dominion Road.
Of course these developers want a light rail, tramway, or whatever you want to call it down the length of Dominion Road. Don’t matter if, like the viaduct tramway, it doesn’t actually connect to anything, because the tax and ratepayers will be footing the bill. But it will look flash. (for a while anyway). But in the mean time will help inflate property prices by being a selling point in glossy real estate brochures .
Talk is, the disruption caused by construction of the light rail will drive small businesses and retailers down Dominion Road to the wall, and the developers will be able to buy up all these properties in a fire sale.
And the character of Dominion Road will be changed forever.
I feel I want to throw up.
I mean really, haven’t we had enough of corporate welfare in this country?
Meanwhile Puhinui Road and the South Western Motorway is crying out for relief from traffic congestion to the airport. Let’s get all those cars off the road. The corridor is there. The need is there. Mike Lee saw the wisdom of it. The main trunk rail line runs right past there. What could be simpler. Even that old dinosaur Winston Peters with his populist ear to the ground knew he could make some political capital over opposing the light rail vanity project. The light rail project down Dominion Road, (or possibly down Sandringham Road) benefits no one except very limited special interest groups. It won’t benefit workers who want to commute to their airport or nearby support workplaces, who currently find themselves in near grid lock traffic jams every working ding dong day.
It doesn’t benefit arriving and departing air travelers who want to get into and out of the city centre with as least hassle and shortest time, and with a certainty of arrival to match their connections.
It doesn’t benefit local businesses and residents.
I agree that the best thing about this project is that Michael Wood is leading it.
Personally I have a lot of time for Michael Wood.
Let’s hope this disorganised dog’s breakfast that he is heading gets so tangled up in its own hubris that it never manages to get beyond the drawing board and the fevered imaginations of the condo builders, and Michael agrees to pull the plug on it and withdraws public funding better spent on actually relieving grid lock to the Airport.
Auckland, welcome to dystopia.
Just like another hellscape torn from a Sci fi horror. Where neglect and inequality lies bare on the streets. Where the filth and muck of cronies drains into the habour. Where the money flows to the top of a glass tower. Where gentrification is complete. Where men sail their boats, and laden ships bottle neck. Where an atomised population congest their lives with consumerism and pollution. Where the city heaves and groans, and something below it is sleeping.
https://youtu.be/PfdvAVkg1X0
Cool. Please take showers everyday you greasy meatball.
Try harder next time Spam. Remember to wash your mouth out before hand.
Convince me that you want to save lives.
Martyn, I could have written that article it is so perfect! Thank you.
We came to Auckland 23 years ago and we’re always so proud of what a nice city we lived in. Now it’s utter shit in the city. That’s what happens when govt and councils do the planning. Never truer than now is the saying: A camel is a racehorse designed by a committee. Never!
Don’t panic, this is one of those promises, you know, the cheques in the mail, etc, etc. Even if it’s led by the new smart urban activist kid on the block, Michael Wood
It’s a very big call to say light rail will happen. It’s back to the drawing board, consult, maybe chuck in a few reports. In a few years, on a Friday prior to a holiday weekend an announcement mixed with several others will tell us this promise has quietly faded away.
Aside from the City Rail Link, a lot of the CBD’s problems are purely down to our Council.
They seem to have been captured by “tactical urbanists”, the kind of smart kids who contribute to Greater Aucklands tinfoil hat echo chamber. The kind who just blocked off Arthur St in Onehunga to 5000 vehicles per day because the residents need to see what these arrogant pricks see. Fervently anti car, pro slow irregular buses and of course, fucking bicycles. Dummkopf politicians like Phil Goff think, for now, these so called intellectuals might be on to something and because Phil is unable to think for himself he buys into this bullshit.
Town is dying because unless you live in it, and good luck to anyone who does, catch the bus or bike, Auckland Council have made it as uninviting as they possibly can. Fewer and fewer car parks, ridiculous low speed limits, illogical traffic light phasing, car bans from streets and the never ending road works just scream stay away. Its deserted for a good reason and it ain’t Covid! And it does not feel safe.
Its reached a point where some big money personalities are taking the council to court, such is the cost of Aucklands CBD slow death and it’s so ironic to see that the fruit of these tactical urbanists are this rotten.
Personally light rail to the CBD was once not a bad idea but not anymore. The place is past tense. So while we are at it, can Auckland Council stop wasting ratepayers money on yet another tart up of Queen St, especially as we’re apparently in a billion dollars hole and they are selling OUR parks off to cover the short fall!
It is lucky for Christchurch that this government were not in power when we had the earthquake . While not everything has gone according to plan there has been enormous progress. We would still be organising committees to look into the finding of the previous committee and Jacinda would be standing there doing hand signals and smiling and assuring us that it would all happen as soon as we elected them for one more term.
Christchurch is a desert in the city centre. What are you on about?
In 3 years there will be 900 more families living in the CBD . The stadium will be well under way .The Convention Centre will be operational. We have all the developement along the river in what was the strip. Metro sports will draw in plenty of visitors . The Library and Margaret Mahy draw families into the centre
The covid slowed the growth and the council are full of officials that are slowing progress but a few years will see a dramatic change. The Cathedral is the only eye sore and will be for years.
Unfortunately for Christchurch, it’s Christchurch.
But hey, it provides a home for taggers, lowered cars and lowlife crims at least.
Well never forget your woes is as result of the immigration ponzi running for a lot of years, the genius solution to economic growth for the capital class. They made heaps of fake money with the accompanied housing ponzi. Kiwi’s is in a trance and in heaven as their properties is worth a fortune. However when they wake up they will realize house price inflation has devalued their wealth and they have become poorer. The only ones really better off is the capital class able to sell off their excess properties and enjoy a tax free existence.
Having 600 000 people added to Auckland during the Key regime’s governance, without the so called business guru and genius ever giving thought to adding the infrastructure to cope with his ponzi, will give you gridlock. Makes you realize in the land of the blind the one eyed is king. Do not forget the impact this had on the health system, schooling etc. The cost to fix this mess will cost the kiwi taxpayers for many years to come. But dont worry the capital class is exempt, and the proud hard working salary and wage earners are to happy to carry the tax burden (paying 65% of all tax in NZ) on behalf of all.
Well any one scoffing at light rail is living in the fumes of planet “Key”, remember the utopia that turned to doggy-doo, and their sense of comprehension impaired. Auckland cannot have more cars and busses on the roads. So how do you increase commuter density? There is little scope for more roads, heavy rail opportunities is costly and construction in Auckland not cost effective. So if you want a cheaper solution light rail is your solution. And if you insist on roads, you should have very very deep pockets to pay the rates and taxes to funds such a costly option.
PS. Remember how Len Brown was ridiculed for his train set! and now the CRL is lauded.
and always remember: “THANKs NATIONAL FOR THE MESS!” The genius fools! …oh and they were born to (d)rule
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