Unfucking believable!
Rolling closures to hit Auckland train users again until 2025
Tens of thousands of Auckland train commuters will face major disruption to services until the end of 2025 as a major $330 million rebuild project begins in December.
The long suffering public transport user is once again getting fucked by AT and every consecutive Government who has used immigration to create fake economic growth while not investing one cent in the infrastructure to actually get us around the city!
If AT say it will finish in 2025 you know it will be 2030!
The Arctic Sea will be ice free before AT finishes its cheap barely adequate upgrades!
This is why Public transport must be made free, to try and heal and protect the long suffering public transport user from more outrageous abuses of bullshit service!
One thing is for certain, if National/ACT get back into power next year, the immigration floodgates will be thrown open once again and the very growth gridlock pains we are suffering now will only get worse.
Expect that AT date to be 2035 then.
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Isn’t the real problem that Councillors haven’t wanted to raise the rates to pay for the upgrades and maintenance, and alongside that the ordinary property-owning rate payers haven’t wanted to pay for the upgrades?
Abandon your cars, take public transport! Or your $5000 E bike.
Then Auckland Council bring in congestion charges to punish drivers and especially the less well off for the audacity of going to work AND not accepting the shit offerings of Auckland Transport. Plus motorists pay the additional Auckland fuel tax, etc, etc!
But we have a bus driver shortage because of the very model our public transport is founded on; buses. Shit pay, abysmal split shifts, and scum who attack bus drivers. All off the back of severe housing unaffordability.
And now our under maintained rail network, only just getting back on it’s feet after the year plus of track replacement will basically close and be worked on by about 20 staff full time with mid 20th century equipment and as you say, one day, light years from now it will be sorted, maybe.
You think the free public transport bribe/promise is real or achievable? Not on your life.
What a joke.
Great comments .I hope those that call for FREE public transport read it and realized how out of touch they are .Even in CHCH buses are constantly being cancelled due to driver shortages.
Rather than blaming mass immegration for any problems we need to attract more to fill roles in every aspect of NZ life.
great idea trevor if a job pays s**t then just import cheaper workers, great solution very smart
Don’t we have minimum wage legislation in NZ?
Shit wages = minimum wages, not a liveable wage, massive difference there Bobby. Then there is the underbelly employing immigrants who pay below the minimum wage. They just don’t get caught.
Why would migrants come here for shit wages when they can go to Australia and get good money .They are so desperate over there they are telling those on a aged pension they can do 12 months and it will not effect their pension.
Bus drivers in Chch are on $27 per hour and they are still short staffed. Not sure what Auckland drivers get paid but if it is not enough then now is the best time to ask. Even university professors are going on strike now for 8 percent increase.
Are you seriously suggesting all those examples were better off under National?
They’re going on strike now to get an 8 % increase that National never gave them and they are 15 years behind where they should be Trevor thanks to National.
Thinks were a lot cheaper under National. There housing policy was not great I admit but rents were a lot lot less as we’re houses .This country is going backwards and in the last month more nurses left this country than came in according to their union boss.
Every business and everyone who has their busiensses pay their private lifes will write of the congestion charges.
The only ones paying it in full are the workers. The ones that now have no trains taking them to work from Jan onwards. But that was clear from the onset.
Or did you really think that Labour is gonna tax the rich, the haves and the connected. Seriously they would never.
It’s interesting that this information was kept secret right up until the last day of voting.
Who knew?
Who is the councillor responsible for planning? (Chris Darby). Was he aware?
But but, free public transport.
If you imagine it, you have it right?
Poor Efeso. You had one decent idea and AT just shat the bed.
Go around the world and see functional stations NOT the gold plated monstrosities being built here. We act like we are like-for-like with Paris, London or New York with our infrastructure. We aren’t even on the level of Brisbane. Adelaide maybe although they appear to be able to build things there also.
Nice in France under a conservative MP ripped up the old town, the very old town, the new town and build trams and buslines everywhre within a few years. Still expanding on it.
Cost per ride/ 1.50 euro, that includes busses.
Same issues as AKL, one side is hilly, one side is water and a whole lot of people wedged in the middle.
But i am to be afraid for N/A in the future, when AKL just lost its public transport under a Labour Government, supported by Greens, with an outgoing/gone ex Labour MP mayor, to be replaced maybe with an EX Labour doodah tht promised free public transport in trains that will no longer run.
The issue in NZ is simply that the ruling class – L, N, – don’t give a fuck about workers. IF they would public transport would have been invested many decades ago.
also. Labour will never tax the rich. It will never help the poor. It will never feed the hungry. It will never house the homeless. It will suck, huff and puff and then grandstand with a ‘surplus’, while the banks raise the interest rates.
And we are to be afraid of how much worse N / A could be, never mind the atrocity that is L/G.
I hope the workers from South / West Auckland have good shoes. Cause they be walking to work.
Haha, I think you hate Labour Soo much that you have your perspectives around backwards.
AKL hasn’t lost its public transport, It’s just this terribly timed decision from AT that may unravel the progress made in recent years with growing Public Transport Commutes.
You lay the blame at Labour but you show ignorance to the situation.
Both Labour and National, more National never invested into public transport because a decade ago, the way of thinking was “Cars are the future of transport, forever” but that has proven to be a terrible mistake.
I don’t think either Labour nor National care’s for the working class more than the other, I think their policies affect the working class in different ways, it’s just Labour has better policies for employees, Nationals policies mostly benefit the employers and the rich.
By taxing the wealthy what do you mean? If you mean a wealth tax well I’m sorry to burst your bubble but a wealth tax wouldn’t work.
Many countries that did implement a wealth tax no longer have one.
Mainly because the wealthy either moved abroad, or moved their assets to another country which was bad for the economies of the countries that had such taxes.
And this circumstance led to decreased investments into the economy which leads to a multitude of other problems.
The only way a wealth tax would work is if it was temporary, or if it was implemented globally.
If you mean higher income taxes well Labour created the 39% tax threshold for higher income earners, and guess who wants to scrap that. Yep, the National Party.
Labour has tried to do all the things you accuse them of never doing, it’s their policies that aren’t working.
So yes, you should be afraid of National because they are the party who constantly played down the importance of public transport for decades and are still doing it, they accuse Labour of being addicted to spending but if they think that NZ government spending which is ranked 48th out of all developed nations is so costly then it’s no wonder our systems are so dated seeing they were in power for nine years prior to labour.
I am Afraid of National because between Labour and National it’s Labour who’s the better part of two evils, National will always be stuck in the status quo of yesteryear.
You are afraid of yesteryear?
good grief, people in Yesteryear in NZ had decent public transport. Affordable houses. Affordable food. Affordable energy.
fuck bring back yesteryear.
New Zealand does have a wealth tax. It also has a capital gains tax and an inheritance tax.
They only apply if you are on a WINZ benefit or if you need to go into rest home care.
Apples with oranges comparison. Nice does not have a harbour crossing, basically a tourist town (hence why public transport is required) and otherwise is socioeconomically wealthy.
To do something similar in Auckland would cost somewhere in the vicinity of 30-35B (factoring in a second harbour crossing) which could only be paid by tripling rates and significant government intervention.
That is true. Nice does not have a harbour crossing.
It literally had one road on the Bord de la Mer ‘ de that was Schritt Tempo most of the time. Schritt Tempo – walking speed. And a toll driven motorway, a train line and a few buses.
And then came along Estrosi and the dude got trams and buses now that are everywhere, 1.50 per ride, every where. Why? Because the dude knew what the future was going to look like and got it done.
In NZ a so called ‘transport agency’ just shut down three important train lines.
Its not that Nice did not have a harbour crossing that made this any easier.
It’s that our polititans and their enablers mostly have shits for brain and no future vision. Thus some get up to 8 grand for an electric vehicle – never mind the energy crisis, others get told to walk to work, or pay a congestion charge.
The dude in Nice, Estrosi, had a vision. In NZ our dudes and non dudes have nothing.
Nah,
the problem is not the harbour crossing, it is however a good excuse to do nothing.
The problem is that 20 years ago under Helen Clark fuck all was done. Fuck all was done under John Key. Fuck all is going to be done under Jacinda Ardern. And again, fuck all is being done under whom ever gets selected to pretend being PM of NuZillind.
Because the empty suits that get selected get selected for being without vision, ideas, guts and thus no glory. Not for Labour not for National, and above all no affordable public transport for the masses.
And thus, all the postering, the greenwashing and hte pretense is just that, pretense that these empty suits do something.
30, 20 years ago, heck even 10 years ago investing in public transport would have been cheaper then today in a decaying dying world.
I hope you have a good pair of walking shoes and some spare tires for your bike. Cause you and all the other ‘public transport is too expensive and to hard to do’ dudes and non dudes will one day wake up to the fact that private transport will no longer be affordable and ‘sustainable’ and you will either walk or cycle.
Disagree on Clarks government.
Firstly, they untangled the privatised NZ Rail/Transrail mess, created an organisation virtually from scratch (Ontrack) to step in and revive the network that had been completely neglected since privatisation.
Set about and revived Auckland’s Western line. That is not part of this closure.
Rebuilt the Onehunga branch from a closed ruin. That is not part of this closure.
Started the Manukau branch.
Worked with the ARC to revive Auckland’s rail network infrastructure.
Began the process of electrification in Auckland that was cancelled by National before being reinstated but their intervention delayed it by nearly a decade.
Created Kiwirail.
Just in terms of those things alone, Clarks government was a 24/7 solid achiever compared to Arden’s catatonic non achiever government.
what has Clarke done that profits us today as a country”
fuck all and i voted for her every single time she ran. I would have voted for Jeaneatte Fitzsimmons as that was the only person in the room in 2008 who had a vision for hte future. Funnily enough that was the last time the Green Party had someone with vision.
In regards to the last 20 years nothing was done in regards to public transport. a bit of lipservice, a few buslines here and there, a few trains more then before. But properly invested, planned, budgeted and executed? Nah.
I hope you too have good shoes with good soles.
So Clarke was ousted by Key. Now I ask you the same question…
what has Key done that profits us today as a country”
just before I came out here manchester put in ‘light rail’, trams to be honest, super impose the current map on the old tramlines virtually identical, thing is it was a long term project they started in the city and over the years worked outwards now they have a functioning system
According to Auckland Council 32% of rates is spent on transport. Squeaky wheel gets the grease…to sqeak even louder and get even more grease.
I wonder how that 32% is broken down…80% on consultants, reports, meetings, PR, bullshit…20% on traffic management.
15% of that 20% to be spend on cones to warn people of potholes. its the new ‘improved safety features’.
In 2016/17 43,000 people alone increased the population of Auckland. Mostly immigrants.
Why are you all complaining, you can’t have it both ways, an increase in population and no investment in infrastructure. Thanks’ National.
I wonder if Auckland will become NZ’s fastest shrinking city over the next 2-3 years?
Firstly I believe the image used as a representation of a train service falling off the rails is actually a Sydney train, which is quite ironic because the train service in Sydney is actually pretty good and there has been significant investment in both metro and light rail over recent years.
The key word is investment, or in the case of Auckland lack thereof, the problem stems from the fact that Auckland Council does not have enough revenue raising channels to maintain the current infrastructure let alone improve upon it. Consequently it is reliant on obtaining funds from central Government, which has proven difficult to say the least.
Unless this is resolved Auckland council will always be depended upon the political whims of whoever is in power in Wellington. Currently there is some hope, but just wait and see what happens if there is a National/ACT Government with Seymour in control of the purse strings then Auckland council will not get a cent out of Wellington as there only thing ACT appear willing to invest in is defence spending, which is something I in fact agree with but that is for another comment at another time.
AT hates Trains!
AT doesn’t do anything other than parking infringements. Everything else is contracted out.
So they bend over the board room table a lot at meetings with their preferred contractors and providers of contracted services.
They Hate Rail so much that they have destroyed all of the northern and southern regional rail network links!
Now they’re destroying the local links, Onehunga has been a recent example by cutting a direct service to and from Onehunga. I bet you that has something to do with Paul Majurey but that’s another story playing out in another part of Auckland council now, eke Panuku.
AT is a council-run entity that milks Aucklanders of cash daily to then give to multi-national corporations who are in need of corporate welfare. In return these people at AT all get jobs with these contractors when they set up their next money-making ratepayers funded JV.
Why wouldn’t you want to pay your rates and annual rate increases!
It’s all easy money for jam, ay!?
well to me it looks like certain interests are deliberately sabotaging public transport…….mmmmm wonder why
The mayoral prospects could have enhanced their chances had they promised to rip AT apart and start from first principles. If kiwirail are responsible, then AT need to get out a big stick.
This rail work required should be done around the clock until it’s complete- I can just see what will happen, work that is done will be piecemeal, delayed by weather, weekends off and all the usual disruptions and inefficiencies that these contracted out jobs end up having. Perhaps if the govt won’t do a public works dept for crucial infrastructure then maybe we need a regional one.
Free Public Transport with EFESO. It is the most important, effective action that can be done at this vital epoch in history and the future, not to mention the present. It will help the least helped. It will show a path to lowering emissions for Papatuanuku, Moana, Maunga and Whenua. We must save this planet from those who would destroy it for their own selfish reasons. Auckland can save itself with the inclusive Mayor Efeso Collins. Reduce the hate, increase the love, let us be civil in our disagreements. Bomber’s Monday night Political Broadcast proves that robust debate is possible without hurting any one, except those who do not watch it, of course. If such a dedicated person of the people such as Martyn Bradbury can host a show with a sworn again liberal, we can be sure that Efeso will be able to reunite this magnificent city we call Tamaki Makaurau, and sometimes Auckland if you are particularly monocultural. Lula has to go to a second round in Brasil, that is devastating for that country, another month. Another 3 years of inaction in Auckland will be exactly as Bomber writes. It is the end of the world as we know it, it has been ending for at least 70 years, if not 2000, if not 10000, if not one millenia. But it will end in our lifetimes and that has to be enough to at least try and save the skin of these “humans” that have diseased this magnificent planet with their religions and and anti evolutionary antics despite Darwin and every other educated person knowing that we are in control of our own destiny, and at the moment, we are failing ourselves! LET’s GO E F E S O OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Good call Matthew. FREE TRAIN TICKETS FOR EVERYONE!!!!!
Auckland in a nutshell – and take that as you wish.
The long suffering public transport user is once again getting fucked by AT and every consecutive Government who has used immigration to create fake economic growth while not investing one cent in the infrastructure to actually get us around the city!
The big planners, advisors from overseas come and give us tips on how to grow the country’s economy, the opportunities to push the rate up and up. That works they get their fee. The success froths at the top and the cup runneth over. Problems. Another giant firm comes and diagnoses the problem, and …gets its fee. The Battle of the Titans!
Meanwhile down in the boondocks, we pick our way through the not complete chaos so we can still have a life, of which there are many different gradients, some wrapped in luxury and some in dirty newspaper or cardboard. But then that’s good as recycling was one of the goals to work at said the wise guru, and got paid for that sentence. They should be serving other types of sentence!
But with luck it all makes work for the working man to do! How the system works for the ordinary person, sung by Flanders and Swann and portrayed by Lego. Laughter is the best medicine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOA_SUKEZRE
Stop Press.
Minister Wood listening to bus operators. He’s making the right noises about pay and conditions but honestly, fiscal discipline will win the day.
Expect full on migrant exploitation in the next 6 months!
At least Labour s Hamilton to Britamout fast train service will still work. Will just take 3 hours with all the replacement buses.