'Future-proof' airport should include subway

Auckland Airport is being urged to "future-proof" itself by including an option for an underground railway station in its master-plans.

A consultants' report, commissioned by the airport company and due to be outlined to Manukau City Council tonight, suggests more buses and cheaper taxis as quicker relief to road congestion.

The report says research indicates rail is a relatively expensive way of providing an access corridor compared with the use of roads by buses, taxis and shuttle vehicles.

It suggests Auckland City Council relax its ban on taxis and shuttles with fewer than 13 seats in bus lanes.

But it says it is important for Auckland International Airport to involve itself in any future scheme to extend a rail link into its midst.

The report, by Beca Infrastructure, refers to an Auckland Regional Council study noting the impact an airport rail service would have on the capacity of a network constrained by the operation of Britomart as a terminal rather than as a through train station.

"Removing this constraint would require significant additional expenditure - for these reasons, the development of a rail link in the short to medium term is unlikely," the Beca report says.

But this point is already capturing interest among politicians who support a proposal by the Auckland Regional Transport Authority to run trains through Britomart and out its western end into a $500 million to $1 billion tunnel to Mt Eden.

"It helps the case for a tunnel," said one source yesterday, who did not want to be identified before the regional council votes on the plan.

The authority this week unveiled, although only to a restricted audience of regional councillors, a long-term "vision" of an electrified rail network extending not only to Mt Eden but also possibly to the airport and from Southdown to Avondale.

A rail link to the airport could run either as an extension of the little-used Onehunga line, or from the main trunk at Wiri and a proposed spur line from central Manukau.

The report puts the average time of northbound trips from the airport to Symonds St in Auckland, a distance of 18.6km, at 26 minutes, with a range of 19 minutes to 47 minutes.

Southbound trips to the airport, measured by airport buses fitted with GPS tracking systems, were slightly faster at an average of 23.5 minutes, in a range of 16.5 minutes to 36.5 minutes.

These times are less than indicated in anecdotes of frustrated taxi and shuttle operators, one of whom complained to the Herald this week that it took him 40 minutes to make the trip at peak times "on a really good day" and up to twice as long on some others.

The driver was annoyed at having to tell passengers he was unable to use bus lanes.

But the report predicts a 90 per cent rise in the daily average of 81,000 vehicles now visiting the airport by 2015, and says the variation in road travel times is often "the most difficult and troublesome part of the total journey" for flight-bound passengers.

"Considering the airport's key role as a national and international transport hub, the perceived difficulty in accessing Auckland airport is a constraint not only to the development of the airport but to the economic well-being of the Auckland region and New Zealand as a whole."

The report recommends airport businesses work out travel plans for their staff, including measures such as car-pooling, and that Transit New Zealand and the Government be lobbied to prevent further delays to completing Auckland's western ring route from Manukau.

It urges finishing missing links such as a duplicate Mangere Bridge, the Avondale motorway extension of State Highway 20, and the Upper Harbour Motorway to Albany.

It notes the Auckland Regional Land Transport Strategy fails to identify a clear access route between central Auckland and the airport, and suggests improvements to feeder routes such as Dominion, Hayr and Pah roads.