City Rail Link - Should hindsight trump vision to get Auckland better connected?
Thursday, 18 April 2019
OPINION: In November 2011, the then-leader of the Labour Party Phil Goff, told cheering supporters his party, if elected, (it wasn't) would fund half of Auckland Council's City Rail Link project.
Eight years later as mayor of Auckland, Goff has branded 'unfair' that today's Labour-led government will fund only half of the $4.4 billion project.
Former Auckland councillors have taken to social media in 'told-you-so' mode over the news the underground rail project will cost $1 billion more than previously thought.
'Total disaster for Auckland ratepayers' posted former two-term North Shore ward councillor George Wood, on Facebook.
**READ MORE:
* City Rail Link: Auckland Council diverts $500 million savings to over-budget project
* Auckland City Rail Link project cost rises to $4.4 billion
* In pictures: Auckland's City Rail Link
* Struggle street: $3.4 billion City Rail Link refuses Auckland businesses' cries for help**
'Remember the huffing and puffing across the table when we dared to suggest it would blow out,' replied former two-term Orakei councillor Cameron Brewer.
'We wrote a very good letter to the Auditor General three years ago warning of this exact thing,' wrote Brewer.
In a brief statement on Wednesday, the Minister of Transport Phil Twyford re-stated his commitment, but couldn't help noting 'the re-costing exercise has shown that the last Government did not set aside enough money for inflation and cost escalation'.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
What would have happened had councillors known in 2011 that the project they thought could cost $2.5 billion, would cost $4.4 billion?
Would the National-led government have slowly and reluctantly come around to accepting the case for City Rail Link and signed up for half?
Would the 2011 Phil Goff have proudly promised, if in Government, to pick up half of a $4.4 billion tab?
Would Auckland now be three years into building a project likely to be the most-transformational since the opening of the Harbour Bridge fifty years ago?
The answer may well be that the City Rail Link would still be being debated, with it's cost ticking ever-higher.
Goff as mayor has acknowledged the transformational value of CRL, and that it is a 'must-have'.
Politicians will be remembered for what they did, not what they said.
The value of the City Rail Link will be seen not so much when it opens in 2024, or even if it is 2025, but maybe 20 or more years into the future.
And wise purveyors of hindsight on CRL should look ahead to the proposed two Light Rail lines.
Done properly, the lines to the airport and Mangere in the south, and the north west can also be forward-looking and transformational.
Remember though, that they are being advanced on 'seed funding' from the government of $1.6 billion, with the likely cost four times or more of that figure.
No doubt as the designs are refined and improved, whatever the costs are, may also rise.
The $1 billion increase in the City Rail Link's likely cost is 'unwelcome' to use the mayor's word, but neither a complete surprise nor proven to be due to avoidable failings in the past.
A quarter of that is the need to add capacity to stations, reflecting stronger than forecast rail patronage growth, and restores some elements cut in 2014 to reduce cost.
A city such as Auckland, which aspires to break out of its car-dominated past needs political vision and courage.
Whoever cuts the ribbon on the City Rail Link will bask momentarily in the vision and courage of past politicians and advocates.
By then there may also be revenue flowing into public coffers from capturing some of the uplift in the value of properties along CRL's route.
The 'huffing and puffing' should by then be long forgotten.