Early start to city rail link 'highly realistic'

Photo / Sarah Ivey

Transport chief more confident after big jump in train use.

Hefty patronage growth on Auckland trains is making the city's transport authority bullish about meeting the Government's conditions for an early start on the $2.86 billion underground rail project.

"We think it's highly realistic," Auckland Transport chairman Lester Levy said yesterday of the organisation's prospects of persuading the Government to let it start digging twin rail tunnels between Britomart and Mt Eden before 2020.

He was commenting on a report to his board of a 13.9 per cent increase in rail patronage for the year to June 30, to 11.4 million passenger trips.

That was 1.4 million trips more than last year, when patronage fell in the wake of the 2011 Rugby World Cup, interrupting a steady upward trajectory since Britomart opened in 2003 handling 2.5 million passengers.

The Government wants proof patronage will rise to 20 million trips by 2020. It also wants 22,000 new central city jobs by 2020, a goal Auckland Mayor Len Brown sees as more problematic, though he points to several commercial property owners planning mega-developments around the proposed rail link.

Dr Levy is even more pleased with a 23 per cent increase in rail trips last month compared with June last year.

Overall public transport patronage rose 5.6 per cent for the year.

Transport blogger Patrick Reynolds says the 20 million target will be met by 2018 if patronage growth continues at its current rate, and the Green Party is calling on the Government to grant an immediate start on the new rail link, and not wait for "some time in the never-never".

Dr Levy is confident growth will continue, especially with the continuing rollout of electric trains and the introduction late next year of integrated fares enabling travel on rail or buses for the same price over any given distance.

Auckland Transport is, meanwhile, hailing a 57 per cent increase in passengers at the new Panmure railway station - to an average of 1116 each weekday - since it opened in January. The station had a $17.5 million upgrade allowing easier transfers between buses and trains.

Puzzle stops trains in their tracks

Auckland Transport still hopes to introduce electric trains to eastern suburbs in three weeks, despite a puzzling power problem that has stopped trains running between Onehunga and Britomart.

A spokesman's assurance that the trains would start running between Manukau and Britomart via Panmure and Glen Innes on August 17 follows a succession of night-time tests of power supply equipment since they were replaced temporarily by old diesel units a week ago on the Onehunga line.

Chief operations officer Greg Edmonds told Auckland Transport's board that trains had operated with few problems on the line since April before being hit by intermittent power supply problems on Monday and Tuesday last week.

It was not known whether the problems came from the national grid, the local network, equipment on the trains or a combination of factors.