COMMENT: The light rail link to the airport proposal has all the hallmarks of earlier penny-wise, pound-foolish solutions to Auckland transport's growing pains. Twenty years ago, the new Britomart Transport Centre was forever compromised by cost-cutters who not only scrapped the planned underground bus terminal, but hobbled train capacity, by restricting access to just two tracks.
Back in the 1950s, the same short-sightedness had a six-lane plus footpaths harbour bridge trimmed back to a four-lane vehicular highway. Just 10 years later, four more lanes had to be clipped on at great expense. Half a century later, a pedestrian-cycleway clip-on is still being debated. So it's great that pressure groups like Public Transport Users Association and Transport 2050 have joined to pressure the Government and Auckland Council against playing the cheapskate card again over rail to the airport.
Early in 2015, Auckland Transport chairman Lester Levy's surprise announcement that AT was investigating a $1 billion light rail network to replace buses along the main arterial routes in isthmus Auckland sounded like the solution to impending traffic doomsday.
The draft Regional Land Transport Plan 2015-2025 was warning that bus routes along "key arterials such as Dominion Rd and Symonds St" will be significantly over-capacity in the "near future" even with the underground rail link. Adding more buses would only lead to total gridlock. On-road light rail could avoid this by carrying up to 18,000 passengers an hour - three times the capacity of buses.
The first track would be up Queen St and down Dominion Rd, with subsequent tracks along Symonds St, Mt Eden Rd, Manukau Rd and Sandringham Rd, and in the future, possibly to the south and north. As for the airport, he said that could be either light or heavy rail.
