City Rail Link will rewire Auckland with ‘big jump in connectivity’

Sunday, 25 January 2026

Once the City Rail Link opens, the number of people able to reach Auckland’s central business district by public transport within 30 minutes will double, according to the latest council projections.

It will lead to a boom in business for the city centre and also have spinoffs across the region.

“We’re going to get a big jump in connectivity,” Auckland Council principal transport adviser George Weeks said.

“It means the city centre, which is already the densest residential and employment area in the country, is going to be accessible by more trains, connecting directly to more neighbourhoods.”

Weeks is a former urban designer at Transport for London and has lived in Auckland for the past nine years.

He focuses on what he terms the “geometry” of transport, saying: “If you want to move more than 20,000 people per hour, you have to use rail. That’s the only way to do it. And this is just geometry.

“Try filling a city with 20,000 cars per hour – similar to 10 full Civic car parks – and you’ll have complete gridlock.

“There was once only one metro system in China, in Beijing. And now 47 cities in China have metros because they realised if you want cities to work at scale, you need to enable people to move around efficiently. It’s the same here in Auckland.”

Frequency was the “absolute key” to public transport, he said.

“We’ll have two new city centre stations in Auckland’s densest, most productive area, which means 21,000 more residents, 17,200 more students and 37,000 jobs will now be within a 12-minute walk of Karanga-a-Hape and Te Waihorotiu stations.”

The ease of people getting into and around the city centre would also lead to a boom in business.

“If more people can reach the centre … then it makes more sense to develop, invest or open a business there. Public-facing businesses thrive on footfall.”

The benefits would spread across Auckland, Weeks predicted.

“Look at Manukau, Henderson and Takapuna – they will all be better connected post-CRL too … Regionally, the benefits are enormous.

“For example, post-CRL if you’re travelling from Henderson peak morning to midtown, you’ll save 24 minutes in travel time. It will become a direct route: no changes from train to bus, and no going around three sides of a square.”

He said the CRL would support a more liveable, productive modern city, attracting top talent to live and work here.

“Only about 20% of journeys in Auckland are commutes. The rest are going to the shops, visiting friends, entertainment, hospitality. It’s our job to communicate this to the public.”

He said the London Underground deliberately promoted itself not just as a service for work commuters, and the same could be done in Auckland.

“After work or in the weekends, being able to go by rail directly into the city centre [and] not worrying about car parking, traffic, getting a taxi home after a show is going to be a really big deal.

“This is not just about people who live in the city centre. You’re going to have direct trains to Karangahape Rd from Pukekohe. This has never happened before.”

In turn, work has been under way to make the central city better suited to bigger numbers of people coming in.

For example, Karangahape Rd has been rebuilt with trees, wider footways, new cycleways, better lighting and streetscape enhancements. “And now the same cross-section has been continued down Pitt St as far as the fire station.”

Similarly, the streets of midtown and Queen St now have more space for people and less through-traffic.