Wayne Brown: Auckland mayor on the opening date for the CRL being confirmed

There's promises Auckland's City Rail Link's good to go, with an opening date announced for next month.

Passengers can ride the $5.5-billion-dollar lines from September 13, after extensive testing and dress rehearsals. 

Mayor Wayne Brown says this is a good project for Auckland, even if it was 'too costly and too slow.'

"It will be a good thing for Auckland, it's up to us now as a council to make sure that instead of having a capacity of 19,000 people per hour, we actually have customers of 19,000 people per hour." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, as we just discussed, we finally have a date
for the opening of the rail line under Auckland. The
Crlder trains will start running on September thirteen. At the
announcement this morning, of course, was the Mayor Wayne Brown,
Wayne Halloa, very well, thank you. What happened with the
billboards this morning?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Well, I don't know, but I thought it was quite fun.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Actually, I was able to stay up and say, long last,
we're doing something ahead of schedule.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Well, you mean something ahead of schedule as the guys
getting the announcement up on the billboards hours before they
were supposed to.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Yeah, that's possibly true, but you take whatever wins you
can get.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. Now,
how would you describe this train system? Is this a
game changer? Do you think for Auckland.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
I think it is the right thing to do. I mean, first,
I first came up with the idea of that back
in nineteen twenty, and then may Or Robbie, who is
more of our parents generation, thought it was a good idea,
but he couldn't get the votes around the table, and
so it is a good project. It was just like
a lot of projects too, costly and too slow. But
it's still a good project and it will be a

(01:06):
good thing for Auckland. It's up to us now as
a council to make sure that instead of having a
capacity of nineteen thousand people, pro how we actually have
customers of nineteen thousand people prow.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
That's what the job is now.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
I keep on hearing you say this. He keeps saying
we've got to use it now. Are you worried that
it's not going to have that much patronage?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Well, that wouldn't be a good result.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
And to get that a level of petrog we really
are going to have to do some more intensive vacation
along the railway line around tracks. If you fly over
most cities, even in Sydney or or every city in China,
you can see from above where the train tracks going
because there's multi story buildings all along where the railway

(01:53):
stops are. And here, even after ten years of getting
it ready, we've got people who still think, oh, now
we should have green leafy suburbs. We need to have
lots of people living at Mount Edon to catch the train.
We have lots of people living at Kings London extro train.
We've got to keep people living at all the railway
stations to catch the train. And it's a good thing
because it's cheap and it's better, cheaper, faster, it's a

(02:13):
nice way to come into town and get cars off
the road and fifty dollars a week for transport that's
cheaper than parking the car.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Ye're too right, But that's going to happen, don't you think.
I mean that is where the game changer thing comes in,
is that over time people are going to start building
big buildings around those train stations.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
And we've got to do that, and that's part of it,
and it really should have been. They really should have
been half up now, but we've only just managed to
get the planning permission to do that, and that's taken
a bit of arm testing as well, and so but
without that it will be really good. But it needs
to be full to be excellent. And I mean, if

(02:51):
you go to the international cities of Asia and Europe,
you'll find that the trains are full in the morning
and full in the evening in part for the rest
of the day, but they have to be full at
some stage otherwise they never pay themselves off.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
When are you going to get on it.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Well, I'm actually luckily enough on one of the bus
routes and I catch the Outer Link quite regularly to
work and it's full and so we've got it.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Well, I'll tell you when I will get on the train.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Absolutely will be its first big test when when Australia
play the All Blacks at Eton Park and we'll all
go up to k Road, have a beer and get
on the train.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
You're going to get off at Manga Fowl which is
the Mount Eden station.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
That's a hike to you. No no, no, no no,
you get off for Kingslanders right next for you.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Oh yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
They do that now.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
But and the people from West coming, but everybody will
come in that way now and it'll be cool and
so that that'll be the first test of a big mob.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
All right, what is that? That's October ten or something
like that. Wayne, Thank you as always appreciate talking to you.
That's Wayne Brown Auckland's met. For more from Heather Duples Drive,
listen live to News Talks it B from four pm weekdays,
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