$20m to bring commuter rail to Tauranga

Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern with local candidates Angela Warren-Clark (left), Tamati Coffey, and Jan Tinetti. Photo: Ryan Wood.

In her first visit to Tauranga since becoming Labour Party leader, Jacinda Ardern has already had more of an impact than her predecessor – drawing bigger crowds and a better response.

Around two or three hundred people gathered at the Edgewater Fan downtown on the waterfront to hear Jacinda announce plans to invest in both local roads and a rail network connecting the ‘Golden Triangle' of Auckland, Hamilton, and Tauranga.

She says the plan is drawn from the business case put forward by Greater Auckland and Greater Tauranga last week, and which was enthusiastically endorsed by the Green Party.

Jacinda says her government will invest an initial $20 million in commuter rail connecting the three cities, and continue to invest if demand warrants it.

'We believe 350,000 trips a year would justify the project.”

Greater Tauranga spokesperson Heidi Hughes says their group, which advocates for alternative transport in Tauranga, only launched a few days ago.

'We've been big fans of Greater Auckland for a long time, and many of us have been advocates of multi-modal transport for a while. We really want to be a portal for a bigger conversation around transport here in Tauranga.”

They support the proposed rail network connecting the island's three main centres north of Wellington, and Heidi says although they're independent from Greater Auckland, they have a similar vision.

'We'd like to see a fully-integrated, multi-modal transport network in Tauranga, so there are more choices for people. We're really strong on cycling and public transport. We want to make the most of our existing infrastructure. With some clever work, this existing rail could support both freight and a commuter network.

'We also want to make things better for pedestrians, so when people aren't using their cars they have great ways of getting around.”

She's sceptical of National's recently announced ‘Roads of National Significance' project, which will cost the country $10.5 billion.

'If you build roads, cars will come, and they'll come into our cities and towns. There's got to be more options, or you'll end up with this cartopia of chaos in our cities. If you sorted out ways to get people from A to B with other modes of transport, you're landing people in towns on foot and they won't be taking up carparks or clogging up the roads.”

However, Tauranga MP and Minister of Transport Simon Bridges calls Labour's rail plans ‘unrealistic'.

'The Auckland-Hamilton-Tauranga rail line is our busiest freight route and simply doesn't have the capacity to also be a commuter rail line,” says Simon.

"The only way you could use it for both would be to double track large sections of the line, and Labour doesn't have any plan to invest for that.

'Labour would kick economy-fuelling freight off this important line and replace it with empty commuter carriages. The other and possibly bigger problem is that the journey by train between Auckland and Tauranga takes more than four-and-a-half hours by rail where a car or a bus takes around two-and-a-half hours and a plane takes around 40 minutes.”

He says the population of the Midlands in England is over 10 million people, versus the 730,000 in Waikato/Bay of Plenty, yet the cost of rapid rail there is in the billions of pounds.

'Labour should really do their homework before coming out with ideas cooked up by public transport lobby groups.”

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6 comments

Ya gota be Jokin

Posted on 21-08-2017 18:37 | By Dazed and Confused

Iv seen PTA Boards with more experience then that 4 put together ...And you want to turn the Chq book over to them.


OH dear

Posted on 21-08-2017 18:53 | By Papamoaner

Yet another business case ahead of a business plan. Some of our more pedantic commentors might not like that. $20 million sounds a bit ambitious to me considering we would need to tunnel. If it's solid Greywacke all the way through, the boring machine could do it, but otherwise some big holdups and $$$ blowouts. Does the business case include a geologist's report? There has been no mention of geology core drilling in the media to date, (or have I missed it?) Is this just blatant electioneering with a quarter price tag to attract votes?


You're dreaming or ...

Posted on 21-08-2017 19:03 | By Murray.Guy

$20m to bring commuter rail to Tauranga... "You are dreamin' mate" is the apt expression.


Tell her she's dreamin'

Posted on 21-08-2017 23:06 | By mutley

Jacinda really needs to do her homework on this one. It's a nice idea, but it isn't going to work for Tauranga. Hamilton to Auckland might be a different story though...


Oh dear

Posted on 22-08-2017 06:41 | By maildrop

Maybe this is a sign of things to come. $20m buys you nothing. Apart from a flag competition. May as well burn it. A half arsed policy is worse than doing nothing.


This is just nonsense!

Posted on 24-08-2017 00:51 | By BJ

We had a train, the Kaimai Express, that ran between Hamilton and Tauranga. Nobody used it so in 2001 under a Labour Government the service was scrapped! Now they say they will get it going again! This is just so much rubbish coming from these clowns! They seem to be making up policy as they go! They forget - you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time!!


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