Not only is there major disruption, but what is it we know about major projects? They all run late, so no matter what was said at the start by way of a finish date will never come to pass.
For that matter neither will the bill, but that at least is not the problem for the local businesses who as sure as night follows day started to sink under the weight of a programme of disruption.
After receiving the pleas, we asked Transport Minister Phil Twyford what his plan was. He muttered something about a potential hardship fund, Auckland mayor Phil Goff got involved, but nothing happened.
It was a simple decision - did they want to do something or not?
Twyford said City Rail Link Limited (CRLL) was working "hand in hand" with businesses offering "material support".
Upon the reporting of this, the businesses said, "what support?"
I asked Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and she told me Twyford told her they had some "innovative plans " with "several businesses" that she couldn't name, but which they were negotiating with.
I reported that as well.
At which point the businesses involved contacted me to say, "what businesses?", because not one of their group had any idea of any negotiation.
I got the Prime Minister to give me the paperwork and as it turned out there weren't "several" businesses, there were at best two.
One had a lease takeover option from the CRL enterprise and the other a pop-up option elsewhere.
None of the others appeared to be being helped in any way, shape or form.
By the time we spoke to CRLL, who it must be said are hellishly difficult to work with, it claimed it was between a rock and a hard place.
The offers made - the pop-up and lease option - were as much as it could do. Its remit prevented it writing cheques, which apparently is what most businesses wanted.
CRLL head Sean Sweeney, who had been lured back here from Australia, told me the rules needed changing, the remit wasn't right, and the fact organisers thought they could enter a project like this with no compo plan was mad.
He is of course is right.
I went back and forward between Twyford's office (also a hellishly difficult place to deal with) and the Prime Minister's (in comparison not bad at all).
She finally revealed last Tuesday that an announcement was coming. That announcement got made last Thursday, which was months after the initial problem was raised.
And the announcement was that a hardship fund would be produced, but with no more detail than that.
It had taken months to come up with a yes or no - no wonder Twyford couldn't build 100,000 houses.
My suspicion is because Sweeney dropped the Government in it on my programme, they've dumped him in it by leaving the hardship fund details to him.
He tells me it will be weeks rather than months before the fine print is sorted, so given we got told that on November 1 then by the end of this month we should at least see light at the end of an otherwise shambolic, unprofessional, disorganised tunnel.
There is no excuse for what's happened, and no good reason for its rectification to have taken so long.
If they can't put a simple hardship fund in place, brought about through forward planning and common decency, what's that say about their ability to deliver major infrastructure projects and running the country?
