27 January 2016

Government’s CRL announcement on the right track

Property Council welcomes the Government’s announcement to fund Auckland’s proposed City Rail Link two years earlier than initially planned.

Chief Executive Connal Townsend says the announcement is a significant victory for Aucklanders.

“The CRL was initially outlined in the Auckland Plan and we are pleased to see it move closer to being materialised. An underground rail link that connects to the wider network in Auckland has been debated for a century now.”

The CRL provides much needed certainty for planned and ongoing public and private sector projects, which will grow and regenerate the CBD. It sends a positive signal internationally and nationally that Auckland is open for business, after decades of significant underinvestment in its transport network.

The city’s population is projected to grow rapidly over the coming decades, putting unprecedented pressure on housing and infrastructure.

“We know that transport infrastructure is intrinsically linked to housing and the two must be planned and delivered in conjunction.

“The CRL will provide additional capacity, network resilience, and service reliability to the existing network. It will also futureproof it and provide real time-savings for people.

“It is critical to ensure the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan aligns with transport network plans and allows a strategy that produces desirable and well-connected communities with access to amenities.”

The last 10 years has seen a deliberate approach to intensified residential development near public transport interchanges, with more than 1,200 apartments built in Newmarket, Manukau, Kingsland, and New Lynn.

According to the 2013 Census, the total population of Aucklanders living within a kilometre of the rail network sat at about 330,000; a substantial increase from 80,000 from in 2006.

“These figures clearly demonstrate that if the PAUP enables greater intensification along the rail network, combined with the tangible time-savings of the CRL, more people will choose rail as their first choice of transport, alleviating congestion on our roads.

“This would allow greater mode choice and even possibly reduce the need for expensive retrofitting of existing road networks to meet private vehicle and bus demand.”

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