But as Mr Brown acknowledged in these pages recently, a "city to Morningside" underground rail link, with a station near the Town Hall, was part of a grand plan backed by Minister of Railways Gordon Coates way back in October 1923.
With the Depression, the tunnel fell off the work schedule. In 1937, it was briefly revived as a possible work relief scheme, but the war intervened. In 1949, two Government-hired British consultants revived the idea, as part of a proposal to electrify Auckland rail. They called for a halt on new road building until the impact of the rail improvements became clear.
But by then, Auckland's love affair with cars and motorways was taking hold. It wasn't until the late 1960s that San Francisco-based engineers De Leuw Cather recommended Auckland give priority to public transport over new roads.
The 1972-75 Labour Government, egged on by Mayor Dove-Myer Robinson, supported the underground rail loop, even funding test bores. But the incoming National Government pulled the plug.
It took until 2005, two years after the opening of the new Britomart station, for the new Auckland Regional Transport Authority to officially revive the plans, calling for the electrification of the rail network by 2011 and an underground link between Britomart and Mt Eden in 10 to 20 years, along with reopening the line to Onehunga and rail to the airport.
A project then, with many parents. By the centennial of the unveiling of Gordon Coates' grand plan, it might finally come to fruition. By then the tunnel might be needed for emergency housing.
On Monday, the day the Reserve Bank revealed Auckland house prices have catapulted a record 52 per cent in four years, and a landlord with close links to the Chinese market predicted a new wave of offshore speculation, Minister of Housing Nick Smith continued to tinker.
His latest exercise in avoidance is to don his Environment Minister cape and join the court battles over the proposed Winstone Quarry housing development at Three Kings.
Locals are upset about aspects of the Fletcher Building development which plans to deliver just 1500 dwellings over eight to 10 years. Dr Smith is siding with the developers.
At a time when New Zealand recorded a net gain of 64,900 migrants in the December year - the 17th record month in a row - you might have thought Dr Smith had bigger worries. Over half these migrants will settle in Auckland.
Where are they going to stay? Students are allegedly prostituting themselves for bedspace.
Auckland is nudging the top of the world housing unaffordability stakes, and what does Dr Smith do? He takes on a group of concerned Three Kings residents as though they're the cause of the crisis.
The Fletcher's plan will, in reality, deliver just a fraction of Auckland's housing needs. The Productivity Commission said last year there was an existing shortfall of 32,000 dwellings and a need to build 13,000 new homes each year. Yet last year Auckland gained just 8900 new homes.
Unless the Government admits the market has failed and starts a major home building programme itself, by the time the City Rail Link is completed, the platforms will be full of the homeless, camping out.
Debate on this article is now closed.
