My train station will be closed for 4 years??? I hate Auckland in so many different ways
Auckland one of the worst cities in the world for public transport, road taxes according to new data
Auckland has placed among the worst cities in the world for public transport and road taxes in a new global rankings index.
The meta-analysis also found the cost of parking in New Zealand’s biggest city is comparable to Los Angeles.
According to a new rankings index, it’s worse than Mongolia and Nigeria’s biggest cities.
There are days that I awake and am deeply sad John Tamihere didn’t win the Auckland Mayoralty because one of John’s promises was to immediately sack every Board member of Auckland Transport.
I do my bit for this bloody city.
I don’t own a car and I don’t drive. I always take public transport, walk or ride share. I do what I’m supposed to do as a citizen of Auckland by not contributing to the endless traffic jams and I watch as fanatical car divers and arsehole militant cyclists wage pointless war over transport projects that only ever tinker rather than solve Auckland’s grotesque under investment in infrastructure.
This gutless hopeless SuperCity acquiesces to Wellington Bureaucrats with the ease of swingers wearing banana suits in a monkey brothel. Central Government opens the floodgates to migrant workers with no extra funding to the city that has to cope with that enormous inflow of students and workers. Bloated Swine Palaces (Cruise Ships) close off our waterfront 30% of the year and millions come into the International Airport terminal and gridlock that entire section of roading several times a week.
On top of the grotesque underfunding we have to tolerate the meaninglessness of the pitiful projects we do get. Based on the hopeless ability of every Transport agency under estimating how popular the services will be, The CRL which is causing so much disruption will reach capacity within 5 years of completion, even with the extra train station lengths, so imagine my pleasure and joy in finding out that my train station is going to be closed for 4 fucking years…
Four-year closure of Mt Eden train station during City Rail Link build
The busy Mt Eden Train Station will be closed for about four years to allow for work on Auckland’s City Rail Link.
…4 FUCKING YEARS!
WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT OF HAVING A TRAIN STATION AT ALL IF IT’S GOING TO BE CLOSED FOR FOUR FUCKING YEARS AND THEN DUE TO THE USUAL INCOMPETENCE AND UNDERFUNDING OF ANY TRANSPORT PROJECT REACH CAPACITY WITHIN 5 YEARS???
But don’t worry, here are some soothing bullshit words…
Commuters should have been told of Mt Eden Station closure earlier – AA
Yesterday it was announced the station would close for about four years to allow for work on the City Rail Link.
More than 200 people an hour get off at Mt Eden Station at peak time and they will now be forced to travel to neighbouring suburbs to commute into the CBD.
Barney Irvine from the AA said everyone understood there would be disruption, with major projects like the CRL.
But he said those in charge had not been fair to commuters.
“This has been the plan all along and the public’s only finding out about it now.
“We’re going to see a lot more of this sort of disruption right across our transport network, our roads, our rail system and our footpaths in the next few years and Auckland Transport is going to have to do a better job of managing its work programme.”
Mr Irvine said that included telling the public about future plans.
…that’s right, these fuckers knew that the Mt Eden Train Station would be closed for 4 fucking years and are only now alerting the public to it near the end of the year so it gets lost in the news wash.
As I get older and more cynical and more jaded with every passing second at the obscene incompetence and short sighted underfunded joke that is civil planning in my city, the black toxic splinter that remains of my heart feels only joy when I dream the architects of my misery suffer in an alternate reality where John Tamihere is Mayor and he tortures them daily with his never ending abuse.
A man can dream can’t he?
AT are really proud of the crumbs on offer for Public Transport. Give themselves high fives, but laugh that us schmucks ask for nothing better.
They could build a temporary platform either side of the current one. They could but they won’t. Instead they will provide “bus services”, well kind of. Greater Auckland will appreciate this totally pointless gesture, cyclists will toss off about no alternative bike lanes for their leisure to be obnoxious road rule defying pricks, the rest will just do what you do in Auckland, take the car!
Having said that there’s always Phil Twyfords light rail. Well, no, that ain’t happening….
Win win for big oil!
+1 Xray – how can they keep a straight face banging on about taking public transport when they keep taking it way!
I used to use the buses but after asking 5 different bus drivers where the bus stop was for my stop that had been changed by all the disruption and nobody in the buses knew either!
They are truely a joke!
I agree 1000% with everything in the post (apart from Tamihere getting in because he killed his chances by his idea of part privatising the water, otherwise he had a good chance of winning.) Although I agree 1000% with his view of sacking all of AT!
Another reason why the Greens are losing respect – aka Patrick Renolds appointed to the AT board soon after spotted eating dinner with Twyford and Julie Anne Genter!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/117441122/ministers-fishy-wellington-dinner-during-nzta-board-appointment-process
We are doomed!!!
You would have thought they could have learnt their lessons from Derek Handley a person who also had zero technical qualifications for the role but easily wowed the government in private meetings, with Startrek parallels!
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/107080064/derek-handley-receives-compensation-after-being-dumped-as-chief-technology-officer
Even the blogs are becoming gridlocked!
Auckland really is fucked unfortunately. Time to put up the “No Vacancy” sign for 5 years maybe? Seriously restrict growth while the public transport mess is sorted out.
Auckland Transport is the classic self perpetuating overpaid bureaucracy and “blue skies that never come” style planning agency. And AT has/had Big Brother aspirations too–with expanded snoop cam installs, with facial recognition software for vehicle passengers too!
All sorts of people have bright ideas that both ignore history and the current population growth. Auckland had some world class town planning ready to roll after WWII, but National won in 1949, and returned on the back of the ’51 Waterfront lockout and associated authoritarian measures. The Nats were to rule from ’51 to ’72 with only one brief interruption–1957-60. So the Road Transport lobby got roads, motorways and more roads. Trams were ended too soon rather than being updated, and Robbie’s rapid rail sunk.
I love this line: This gutless hopeless SuperCity acquiesces to Wellington Bureaucrats with the ease of swingers wearing banana suits in a monkey brothel.
But you don’t seriously think JT would have made any difference at all do you?
Move to Kawerau then.
Meanwhile some people get things done.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/thailand-bullet-trains/index.html
Auckland the city I love, I can no longer live in – So I’ve left.
The supercity has been enough of a continuous disaster to force me out. AT being near the top of the list to decide to move. Coupled with the gentrification of Onehunga (which has been particularly ugly and violent) , not to mention ridiculous rent costs – I can no longer call it home.
Auckland is a mess, and with one long hot summer – I see the place set to explode.
Yes was offered a job in Auckland a while back but had the good sense to fly there and find out what it was like getting about. One word, horrible. Compared to Sydney where I lived for years the infrastructure was largely absent leaving you needing to buy or rent in high price inner city areas or grab a car. I wanted neither and instead went back to Sydney where public transport is affordable and reasonably efficient.
The flight from Auckland has been underway for a few years now. Public transport initiatives needed to alleviate congestion in the burgeoning new suburbs are thirty years away. Overseas they build the services in anticipation of the development. Then again they don’t usually have the highest rate of immigration in the known world. Reducing it to levels we can manage to keep up with, would crash our fragile post industrial economy. When we do have a spade ready light rail project, we put it on hold for a few years so we can incentivize international venture capital pension schemes that want to charge us six times what it costs to build over 100 years. This is how we run a modern economy. I wasn’t really disillusioned with politics up till now.