Auckland Harbour Bridge a symbol of small thinking we can't repeat
Tuesday, 24 July 2018
OPINION: Plans to boost the capacity of Auckland's $3.4 billion City Rail Link even before its built, averts another blunder of Harbour Bridge proportions.
The decision in the mid 1950s to build a harbour bridge of only four lanes to the largely-rural North Shore has been a symbol of the failure to look far enough into the future when making big decisions.
Within a decade of the bridge's 1959 opening, work completed bolting on an additional four lanes, what were then dubbed as the 'Nippon Clip-ons' in a nod to their Japanese manufacturers.
It didn't avert a repeat of under-investment in Auckland's transport infrastructure.
**READ MORE:
* Auckland Stadium: why can't we Kiwis knock the bastard off?
* Auckland Council formalises government partnership for City Rail Link
* Claims CRL plans hobble Auckland commuter growth
* Ceremony marks the beginning of Auckland City Rail Link construction**
The 'spaghetti-junction' motorway interchange by the CBD was left unfinished in the 1970s, and completed only decades later in 2006, but leaves the link from the West to the South a woeful single lane.
There are other debatable decisions.
The thwarted efforts by Auckland City mayor Sir Dove Myer Robinson in the early 1970s to promote a rapid rail scheme are now legend.
Local and government opposition killed off a plan that resembled closely what is now being rolled out with the upgraded electrified network, and future light rail and busway lines.
Railway land around Newmarket was sold off cramping the layout options when it was later decided to rebuild Auckland's decrepit rail network.
The opening in 2012 of a spur line into Manukau was done with a link only from the north, argued by some to limit the access from the south where the rail network continues to grow.
A seven year project to widen and upgrade the Northwestern motorway is coming to an end, just as plans take shape to add a dedicated busway or multi-billion dollar light rail line, and dig it all up again.
And so to the City Rail Link, the so-far costliest piece of public transport infrastructure ever built, a 3.5 kilometre twin rail tunnel through Auckland's CBD.
The transformational project was driven by the city's first regionwide mayor Len Brown, in the face first of mockery, then grudging acceptance, and eventually enthusiasm by the previous government.
But even for those close to the project in Auckland, the temptation to make cuts was irresistible.
In 2014, to push $500 million out of the city's 2015-25 Long Term Plan, the council lopped 24 additional trains out of the project bundle, cut one of the three proposed new stations, and axed plans to put a second entrance into the Karangahape Road underground Station.
The train decision was the quickest to be corrected.
Within a year, Auckland Transport was watching faster-than-expected growth of rail patronage and pondering when the 57-train electric fleet might need expanding.
The council at the end of last year decided to spend $207 million buying 17 new trains to enter service next year.
The transfer of the City Rail Link project out of the hands of the council's agency Auckland Transport, and into a joint-venture with the government, brought new thinking on other decisions.
Underground stations designed for the current six-car trains instead of a future 9-car combination was an early target.
Those are now part of upgrades expected to be signed off by the council this week, and subsequently by cabinet.
Wider tunnels through the stations and longer platform are forecast to boost the CRL's capacity from 36,000 passengers an hour to 54,000 after it opens in 2024-25.
'We need to learn from the lessons of the past and do it right from the beginning,' said mayor Phil Goff, encapsulating a change in thinking both at city and central government level about the folly of building for immediate needs and behaviour, rather than future ones.