Phil Goff: Light rail key to a world-class, future-focused Auckland

Friday, 4 February 2022

A flyover of proposed tunnelled light rail project for Auckland announced on January 28, 2022.

OPINION: In Aotea Square stands a statue of former Auckland Mayor Sir Dove-Myer Robinson, his fist defiantly raised. Robbie’s gesture may well symbolise his frustration at the shortsightedness of the local and central government politicians who in the 1970s had blocked his vision for Rapid Rail.

Little more than a decade earlier, the Auckland Harbour Bridge had been built with only four lanes, requiring an extra four to be added – at great cost – just eight years after it opened. More shortsightedness.

With the recent commitment to the $14.6 billion Auckland light rail project , the government has demonstrated that it has learned the lessons of history.

Light rail will provide the transformational change necessary for Auckland to fulfil its potential and become the world-class, future-proofed, international city New Zealand needs it to be.

Auckland Light Rail is the largest transport construction project and the biggest investment in transport infrastructure in New Zealand.

**READ MORE:

Minister of Finance Grant Robertson at the announcement of a $14.6 billion tunnelled light rail system for Auckland. (Video from January 2022)

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Auckland Mayor Phil Goff talks about the recent commitment to the light rail project. (File photo)

For years, Auckland’s population has grown rapidly, but investment in much-needed transport infrastructure has not kept up. The result is a city that over decades has suffered increasing traffic congestion because of car dependency and estimated productivity costs of nearly $1.5 billion a year.

There are other costs. Reliance on cars and motorways means transport now accounts for more than 40 per cent of Auckland’s carbon emissions. And the failure to fund infrastructure – particularly transport – has stood in the way of attempts to build enough houses to tackle our housing shortage and improve affordability.

Light rail from the City Centre to Māngere will be a critical part of the city-wide rapid public transit system Auckland needs as its population rises to 2 million in the next decade. In the north, it will first be a key link to busways, then, following investment in a city centre tunnel, it will enable light rail to be extended to the northwest and the North Shore.

Anyone who doubts the effectiveness of frequent and rapid public transport need simply consider the success of the Northern Busway, which (pre-Covid) carried up to 50 per cent of the people travelling in peak hour between the city centre and the Shore. This has kept vehicle flows over the Harbour Bridge at about the same level over the past decade–despite strong population growth.

In the south, light rail serving the industrial precinct around the airport and the airport itself will connect to rapid transit planned from the Airport to Manukau and Botany, where it will eventually join the Eastern Busway and the Panmure rail interchange into the city.

Without an integrated rapid transit system across the city, congestion will turn into gridlock with huge costs to productivity and liveability. The City Centre to Māngere light rail route alone will connect the two largest and fastest-growing employment areas in the country and provide people with faster and easier access to work and study.

But it does much more than that. Intensification along the route is already under way, with thousands of new homes being built in areas like Mt Roskill, Onehunga and Māngere. Even with double-decker buses, bus congestion will create worsening chokepoints within a decade.

Light rail enables the construction of an estimated 66,000 new homes, for 150,000-200,000 more people – 25 per cent of Auckland’s growth in coming decades. It will also service an estimated 97,000 new jobs. If we don’t invest in light rail to enable this housing growth within the city, we’ll have to spend potentially much more to serve infrastructure for urban sprawl at the city fringe.

Auckland Light Rail will be the largest transport construction project and the biggest investment in transport infrastructure ever seen in New Zealand.

It’s a big investment, but it’s critical for providing the efficient, low-emissions and sustainable transport network we desperately need. It will enable homes to be built for tens of thousands of families and create a better, more liveable city.

And when construction of light rail is complete, Robbie’s upraised fist will become a symbol of Auckland’s success.

Phil Goff is the Mayor of Auckland.