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Mayor: Patronage leap highlights urgent need for CRL

26 May 2015


Mayor: Patronage leap highlights urgent need for CRL

Auckland Mayor Len Brown says the latest leap in public transport patronage highlights the need for the City Rail Link to be built as soon as possible.

Mr Brown is warning there will soon be serious congestion issues at Britomart both in terms of the number of trains trying to access the station and the number of passengers waiting to board them.

"At this rate, Auckland will meet the Government's patronage threshold for financial support for the CRL early in 2017, three years earlier than projected. Growth has been accelerating since late 2013.”

“This confirms what Aucklanders keep telling me. They want to get off the congested roads and onto efficient, reliable and modern public transport.”

In the past 12 months:

· Auckland’s overall public transport patronage has grown by 10%

· Rail patronage has grown by 22%

· Northern Express bus services patronage has grown 17% on the 12 months to Apr-2014

· Bus services excluding Northern Express patronage has grown by 7.6%

· Ferry patronage has increased by 6.6%

In April alone, overall public transport patronage jumped 4% year on year with rail up 18.1%.

Auckland Transport Chairman Dr Lester Levy says the growth in rail patronage is particularly pleasing.

“It has been a difficult time as we run both an electric and a diesel system. We expect the growth to continue as we are just weeks away from a full electric operation from Swanson in the west to Papakura in the south.”

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Len Brown says the big next leap in rail patronage will come when electric trains service the Western Line from late July. Already the new electric trains have started running on that line at the weekends.

“We have seen huge leaps in patronage once the comfortable quieter and reliable electric trains started running on lines such as Onehunga and Manukau.’

Last week, Auckland Council’s Finance and Performance Committee supported an Accelerated Transport Programme made possible by funding from the new Interim Transport Levy for the next three years.

The money generated from the levy will help fund The Accelerated Transport Programme, which will include projects across the region.

Len Brown says “This means we can now start delivering on what Aucklanders told us during consultation that they want strong action and leadership on transport.”

ENDS

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