Viv Beck: Heart of the City CEO on CRL to open with fewer peak passengers than originally forecast

Auckland's City Rail Link is expecting 19 thousand peak passengers after opening day, a sharp drop compared to earlier forecasts.  

In 2022, it was reported 27 thousand passengers an hour would be using the rail link at peak times when it opens next year. 

Auckland Transport says it's increasing the train fleet by about 30% to make 19 thousand passengers possible. 

Heart of the City CEO Viv Beck told Ryan Bridge the drop in numbers is a major problem. 

She says people need to be able to travel through Auckland easily, without cars or taxis.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Is the number of commuters speaking of Auckland using Auckland's
News City rail Link from next year to travel in
and out of the city could be much lower than
first thought. It was meant to be twenty seven thousand
a peak. Latest forecasts revised down now just nineteen thousand
commutts expected for beck CEO Heart of the city with
me this morning, Hey, viv Hello, Are you worried about

(00:20):
the forecast coming down like that?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Absolutely? I mean, seriously, it's a relief to be actually
talking about opening, but the numbers are really concerning and
on the fate of it, this won't take us back
to the numbers we had before construction started.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
So we've spent five point six billion dollars for.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
What well, I mean, I think people are positive about
the CRL. It will bring people quicker and faster into
potential city, all those things. However, talking about financial viability
has to extend the people affected for the last decade,
and also we've got to be sensible about how people

(00:58):
get here. We need people to be able to get here.
There's been an absolute obsession to remove cars. Taxis make
it difficult on many many levels. And if these numbers
are telling us. We're going to be way down and
what was proposed, and there's a major problem. There has
to be accountability and there has to be a major
change in how access and business impacts are managed in

(01:21):
the CEA Center.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, because when they brought this out, they said we
would get twenty seven thousand at peak. To quote them,
this is kibiral. This is all part of the funding,
all part of enabling the sour Ol Day one capacity
increased to twenty seven thousand passion trips. I mean they
told us that number when they were wanting the money
and the public support, and now that we're nearly finished,

(01:43):
they are actually saying no, no, no, we don't want
to oversupply. This has just been I mean, what is this.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Oh look, it's outrageous at fifty four thousand was the
number that was first out and I know a number
of businesses remember that figure very very clearly, and there
were changes is made to get to the capacity. Now
it clearly looks like we're going to have to grow
into this. And you know, we're optimistic looking out, but
right here and now, the financial impact it has been

(02:11):
as incredibly hard as I'm sure you will recall. To
get the financial impacts on the businesses effective even listened to,
let alone any sort of decent support for them. So
it's pretty rich to hear this now, and I do
think there needs to be accountability. Look, we are really
concerned with how access business impacts have been managed for

(02:32):
a very long time. Here we keep getting you know,
it gets fobbed away as this is all going to
come right when this thing opens. It's clearly going to
take time to get to the numbers needed. And it's
not okay that the effects they've had. I mean, the
real is you look at some of the streets, they've
basically compromised access for people with a nobility disabilities needing

(02:55):
service and loading, and there's some extraordinarily bad decisions that
have been made on the basis at by day one,
we need this thing perfect.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
VIVI appreciate your time this morning, Vivi Beck, Heart of
the City, Chief Executive twenty For

Speaker 2 (03:07):
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