Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop has announced a full review of the City Rail Link project – including its escalating cost.
It follows comments by former City Rail Link (CRL) boss Sean Sweeney, who said the country’s largest-ever infrastructure project could have been half the price, if changes had been made to designs earlier in the process.
Bishop told the Herald: “Like everyone, I’m unhappy at the cost of the CRL. I have a lot of respect for Mr Sweeney, so I take what he says seriously.”
The train line is due to open in the second half of this year, although no firm date has been given.
The final cost of the project is expected to be $5.5 billion. That skyrocketed from the original $3.4b because of inflation, scope changes and the pandemic.
Sweeney told the Herald: “I do believe we’re not very good at specifying the scope, and I do believe in New Zealand we’re over-specifying jobs, and it’s making them too expensive, which means we do less of them.”
He admitted the CRL could have been about two billion dollars cheaper, if changes to the design had been made earlier.
Bishop said the focus is on completing the project and getting it open.
“However, I am determined to do a post-completion full review of the project, which is something not often done in New Zealand.
“This review needs to look at the history of the project, along with the business case(s), and costings. It also needs to look at missed opportunities. I’ve been open about how CRL was only really ever envisaged as a transport project when it is so much more than that.”
Current CRL chief executive Patrick Brockie said the planning and design that went into the project in its early years has enabled the company to deliver a project that is world-class in design, distinctly New Zealand and will be one future generations can be proud of.
“These are stations that will be befitting of the grown up, global city Auckland is becoming,” he said in a statement.
“It’s also important to note the overall cost of the CRL reflects a wide range of factors beyond architecture alone, including the complexity of building a major underground rail project in the city centre, market and supply-chain conditions, and the impacts of Covid‑19 and associated disruptions over the life of the programme.
“The scope adjustment in 2019 to increase the capacity of the CRL to allow nine‑car trains rather than six does add additional cost to the project – requiring extended platforms at the three new stations, an additional station entrance at Beresford Square as well as capability for platform screen doors to be added to the two underground station platforms in the future. But future proofing for nine-car trains will mean that the CRL will be able to continue to deliver capacity as the population continues to grow over the decades."
He acknowledged a common challenge facing the industry is an infrastructure pipeline.
“CRL Ltd, Auckland Transport and KiwiRail are working hard to get the project in place and delivering benefits as quickly as possible, and people can look forward to riding the train before the end of the year.”
The Taxpayer’s Union has written to Bishop calling for an inquiry into the cost of delivery of the City Rail Link.
The letter says: “There’s is a clear need for accountability when a major infrastructure project overspends its budget”.
Former Transport Minister Simon Bridges was part of the National government that pushed “go” on the project in 2016, alongside Auckland Council.
He told the Herald: “No big project comes off perfectly, but no one will regret us getting on with building the CRL once it’s open and running.
“Ultimately, despite overruns and, yes, some overspecification, it was an investment worth making, money well spent.
“What would it cost if we started it today? I doubt anyone, even Mayor [Wayne] Brown, would get change from a handful of billion more, regardless of specifications.”
Bridges admitted there may be some merit in the argument about the so-called “cathedrals” – the high-spec train stations, as nicknamed by the mayor.
“It will make us feel properly international, like we probably haven’t in a while. Personally, I’d lay some of the blame on slowing the build down during Covid when we could have kept going at pace, or actually even accelerated the project, entirely safely.”
Earlier, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he agreed with the sentiment expressed by Sweeney.
“We have been doing things in a really inefficient way and like it’s 1975 at times, we haven’t moved on and changed the way we do things,” he told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast.
“I went to Denmark and you look at Copenhagen to Malmo, they’ve built what’s called the Oresund Bridge there that went from idea to finish within four or five years ... There’s a metro in Quebec that, you know, started about the same time as our light rail project, within five years, people are actually on a light rail using it every day.”
Luxon said New Zealand spends a lot of money on infrastructure, but we get a very poor return on it.
The Infrastructure Commission/Te Waihanga said New Zealand spends more on infrastructure than 90% of OECD countries – an average of 5.8% of GDP (or $4500 per person), yet the return on the investment is poor. It says New Zealand is in the bottom 10% for “bang for buck”.
“How do we have $1.2 million classrooms that, actually, when you standardise them, you get the cost down half and you can do twice as many classrooms?” Luxon said.
“We have to get much better and more strategic about our infrastructure planning.”
Katie Bradford is a Senior Correspondent at the Herald. She has been a broadcast journalist for over 20 years and was based in the press gallery for 10 years. She specialises in politics, business and Auckland issues.