‘Auckland deserves this’: CRL to finally open after over 100 years of talk

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1. 0:06Speaker 1: Kia ora, I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is The Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. It's
2. 0:16Speaker 1: finally here, one of the biggest infrastructure projects New Zealand has ever seen. After years of construction, disruption and delays, the City Rail Link is finally a reality, which promises
3. 0:28Speaker 1: to transform the way that we move through Auckland. So what does it mean for Auckland?
4. 0:35Speaker 2: How will it change the city?
5. 0:36Speaker 3: And will it all be worth the wait?
6. 0:39Speaker 1: Today on the front page, we're on location at Te Waihorotu Station as Auckland marks this major milestone. So Chris,
7. 0:49Speaker 1: we're standing at the Te Waihorotu Station. How does it feel that this day is finally here?
8. 0:55Speaker 4: It's pretty amazing. I mean, you can sort of sense this.
9. 0:57Speaker 4: It's like a palpable sense of excitement here. I think actually across Auckland at CRL opening. People have waited a long time, particularly the CBD businesses here and at K Road.
10. 1:07Speaker 4: It's been very disruptive, the tunnelling, and it's been about 10 years worth of work. And so, you know, a lot of people have been waiting a long time for this.
11. 1:14Speaker 3: And, you know, here we are.
12. 1:16Speaker 4: And the opening day is today. The first train's on Sunday, 457 from Otahu.
13. 1:21Speaker 3: I'll be on it.
14. 1:22Speaker 4: But of course, Monday is the big commuter day. And so, you know, it'll be huge excitement. I think a lot of people are going to go and check it out and It's going to be amazing.
15. 1:30Speaker 1: While you've been Transport Minister, this is something that you've been constantly asked about, you know, the CRL, what is the opening, how much does it cost, how many of the delays, et.
16. 1:38Speaker 3: Cetera, et cetera.
17. 1:39Speaker 1: What is one thing that you wished more.
18. 1:42Speaker 3: People asked you about, about the CRL? Well, that's a good question.
19. 1:46Speaker 4: I mean, we have the sponsors of the project, the people in charge of it, the mayor and myself and the Minister of Finance, because back in the day it was set up as a joint 50-50 thing between the
20. 1:56Speaker 4: council and the government. Basically, we've chucked in half, they've chucked in half. I say chuck, but, you know, spent, essentially, invested.
21. 2:03Speaker 4: And so we've been having these monthly meetings just in the last, well, last year or so in particular, in the lead up to it. And I think, you know, people,
22. 2:14Speaker 4: I think probably the general public probably think, you know, oh, well, it's just two new stations and, you know, a new train timetable. And, you know, there's a lot more to it than that. I mean, like the building the stations
23. 2:23Speaker 4: alone has been really complicated. the tunnels, obviously, but then just even the new timetable, which is Auckland Transport's lead, to be fair.
24. 2:30Speaker 3: It's extremely complicated, complete rejig.
25. 2:33Speaker 4: Of the whole network, massive amount of work on the wider rail network as well in that time, and all sorts of safety and transport cases to sign off. I mean,
26. 2:42Speaker 4: I think people, when they think about it, most people don't think about these things, but when people do think about it, they realise just how complicated it is. So it is a real triumph for New Zealand, and I'm really proud of it.
27. 2:52Speaker 1: I think you don't really realize until you walk down.
28. 2:54Speaker 1: I mean, I'll put my hand up and say, oh my God, aren't we sick of talking about the CRL so much? Like, let's just wait until it opens. Let's just, you know, there's all this stuff about, you know, what's
29. 3:05Speaker 1: going to go wrong and, and all of this side of stuff let's just wait until it opens but then when you actually come into this building and walk down here and you get a sense of oh my god it is a little bit like New Yorkie or like it's a bit like a little bit like London you
30. 3:17Speaker 1: do get a little bit excited about it.
31. 3:19Speaker 4: Yeah and I'm really pleased that that's the way you felt about it because there has been quite a bit of negativity over the last few years and you know the mayors you know and me actually have been on
32. 3:29Speaker 4: the record saying various different things about it and people have been worried about the overruns and the time delays and all the rest of it.
33. 3:35Speaker 3: And some of that was due to COVID.
34. 3:37Speaker 4: Some of it was due to decisions made at the start.
35. 3:39Speaker 4: And today we're just trying to be positive because, you know, you can kind of let the past be the past and we do need to learn from it and we will.
36. 3:45Speaker 3: But let's think about today and the future. And it's about the future of Auckland and about building the future of Auckland. And that's ultimately what it's about.
37. 3:52Speaker 1: And obviously there's been a lot of tests about the network and everything, everything running on time and stuff. But do you, I mean, we'd be naive to think that this would go on off without any hiccups.
38. 4:02Speaker 4: Look, we've, done everything we can to make sure that Sunday, Monday is going to be good.
39. 4:10Speaker 3: Will there be hiccups? Almost certainly. It's a rail network.
40. 4:13Speaker 4: You're moving thousands of people. Your train's coming and going.
41. 4:16Speaker 4: It's a new system. It's a new timetable.
42. 4:19Speaker 3: So will there be hiccups? Probably.
43. 4:21Speaker 4: So I'm not going to try and expect perfection. And Aucklanders shouldn't expect perfection either. But You know, we've done all that we can. I just want to assure people about that. We've done everything we can to make sure
44. 4:32Speaker 4: it goes off without a hitch on day one. And also, you know, let's not forget, it's also about day two, because eventually, you know, in a few weeks time, once the sort of initial rush is worn off, this will just become the new normal for Auckland, you know, and
45. 4:43Speaker 4: that's ultimately.
46. 4:44Speaker 3: Why we built it.
47. 4:45Speaker 4: It's not just five and a half billion bucks to have a big glitzy opening, although it's not that glitzy to be fair. I want to reassure people about that.
48. 4:51Speaker 4: We saved as much money as possible. But it's not just about that.
49. 4:56Speaker 3: It's about the future. It's about the next 50 years.
50. 4:58Speaker 4: And these are investments that will last for more than that.
51. 5:02Speaker 4: This was first proposed as an idea in the 1910s, the Morningside Deviation. It actually goes back even arguably earlier than that. So we've been talking about this.
52. 5:11Speaker 3: For a long time.
53. 5:12Speaker 1: How does it feel that you are the one to get to cut the ribbon on this?
54. 5:16Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I feel cool about it. And obviously, it's great to be able to do these things.
55. 5:20Speaker 4: But I'm acutely conscious that I just happened to be a Minister of Transport at the time. So acknowledge the work of my predecessors, you know, Simon Bridges, who kick-started
56. 5:29Speaker 4: this in 2016, and, you know, John Key was the Prime Minister at the time, you know, Len Brown, Mayor of Auckland at the time, now we've got Wayne Brown,
57. 5:38Speaker 4: another Brown, but, you know, different first names as the Mayor.
58. 5:42Speaker 4: So we just happen to be the people in the big seats when the thing is finished, but actually we're just the inheritors of a project that started a long time before us, and as I say, was first talked
59. 5:52Speaker 4: about 100 years ago, before we were even born, before Wayne was even born. So I feel proud of it, but I'm also, I'm not trying to claim the credit for it.
60. 6:02Speaker 3: I just happened to be the guy in the chair at the time. And there'll be people after me too.
61. 6:06Speaker 1: It is quite good though that it's coming out around election season, but it's quite.
62. 6:12Speaker 4: Well, I think people will probably view that a little bit cynically, but it's not, they shouldn't. I mean, do they want it open or not? I mean, we could have, we could have, We could have said, oh, well, we'll
63. 6:23Speaker 4: open it in December. And then people would say, well, you've delayed it so that you don't get accused of politicising.
64. 6:28Speaker 4: I mean, it's just people have been waiting.
65. 6:30Speaker 3: Oh, totally, totally.
66. 6:30Speaker 4: I mean, people have been waiting a long time for it.
67. 6:32Speaker 4: So we just said to them, you know, crack into it.
68. 6:34Speaker 4: And we've always said kind of mid-2026 and probably actually a couple of months after we would have liked it to be open. But they had a bit of safety stuff and, you know, they wanted to, you know, dot I's and cross T's and all that sort of stuff.
69. 6:46Speaker 3: So, you know, we are where we are.
70. 6:47Speaker 1: Because you've been privy to all of the reports and you've had to go over everything, this has probably been your nightly and weekend reading for like years now. What's
71. 6:55Speaker 1: one fun fact that you love about this project or the strangest thing that you've come across?
72. 7:05Speaker 4: Well, one thing I learned just the other day, just last night actually, in preparing for my speech today is
73. 7:11Speaker 4: that Back in 1918, one of the local, what we would call them now the local board of, I think
74. 7:22Speaker 4: it was Grey Lynn actually, was talking about initial proposals for a new underground station in Auckland in the 1870s, or the 1860s actually.
75. 7:33Speaker 2: 1860s.
76. 7:33Speaker 4: Yeah, so there'd been plans, so there was this meeting of the Grey Lynn committee and someone said, oh no, no, there are plans that have been drawn up from 50
77. 7:43Speaker 4: years ago in the 1860s for an underground station. So that's why I say arguably we've been talking about it for more than 100 years. So that was 1918, but they were talking about plans drawn up in the 1860s. Well,
78. 7:55Speaker 4: there's a number of ways to look at that. It's either really cool as a kind of piece of historical artifact, or it's depressing in the sense that it took us
79. 8:05Speaker 4: 150 years to build an underground station.
80. 8:07Speaker 2: We are incredibly, yeah.
81. 8:08Speaker 1: I mean, hopefully it doesn't take 150 years for a second Waitematā crossing.
82. 8:12Speaker 4: No, I will consider that a failure if that happens, but also I won't be around in 150 years to see the failure.
83. 8:18Speaker 1: Will that be in our lifetime, do you reckon?
84. 8:20Speaker 3: Yes, yes, absolutely.
85. 8:22Speaker 4: I mean, we've got to get on with it and make proper decisions, and we will do that, but it will definitely be in our lifetime.
86. 8:31Speaker 1: Right, we'll speak about it then when we get to the opening.
87. 8:34Speaker 3: Very good, look forward to it.
88. 8:35Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Chris.
89. 8:36Speaker 3: Thank you.
90. 8:44Speaker 1: Now, of course, if we're getting a sneak peek at the City Rail Link, we had to bring along NZ Herald property editor Anne Gibson, who's been covering the story
91. 8:52Speaker 1: for more than a decade and capture her reaction seeing it for the first time. Oh!
92. 9:00Speaker 2: It's so pretty! Isn't it beautiful? It is so lovely to see. Oh, my God, the bunting! I love the bunting, right?
93. 9:11Speaker 2: It's like a party.
94. 9:12Speaker 4: I know, isn't it?
95. 9:15Speaker 1: So Anne, we are sitting on one of the new trains, 23 of them.
96. 9:19Speaker 2: They're all electric, hey?
97. 9:20Speaker 5: All electric, and it now means we've got 95 trains running on the Auckland Rail network.
98. 9:27Speaker 1: So we are at Te Waiharatu station, and when we walked through, instead of looking at the station itself, I was full gaze on you, because you are the most
99. 9:38Speaker 1: excited I've ever seen you be. I mean, what was your first reaction when you came into the station and you saw it for the first time?
100. 9:44Speaker 5: Well, I just couldn't believe how beautiful it was. This is architecture on a grand scale. And it's also highlighting Te Ao Māori. There are so many aspects to the
101. 9:53Speaker 5: station that, as the former City Rail Link Chief Executive, Sean Sweeney, has said, this could only be.
102. 10:00Speaker 2: In Aotearoa.
103. 10:01Speaker 5: This is very unusual. It's tremendously exciting. I feel like I'm Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Got the ticket, right?
104. 10:08Speaker 5: To the ribbon cutting of the City Rail Link. Just phenomenal for Auckland.
105. 10:13Speaker 2: A game changer.
106. 10:14Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're quite right because it does have that New York kind of feel because it's like underground. You think of New York, you think of London, but then you look up and you see something and you see
107. 10:23Speaker 1: the Maori architecture or artwork on the wall and you think, yes, this is where we're still in New Zealand.
108. 10:32Speaker 5: So at Te Waihorotu Station, it is particularly significant because the stream that was there, that is why Queen Street
109. 10:42Speaker 5: is there with all the buildings around it, that was Horatu Stream. So the station that we're in now is named after that. The idea is to daylight the name again,
110. 10:52Speaker 5: to bring it back to people's consciousness.
111. 10:55Speaker 2: And what we're seeing.
112. 10:56Speaker 5: Also is Horatu in the ceiling, the kaitiaki, so the protector, the taniwha, the water monster that You know, that is
113. 11:06Speaker 5: part of this whenua, that is part of the wairua of this place. And that is, as you walk in to the main station, that's the big carving in the centre.
114. 11:18Speaker 2: And as well, 4,000.
115. 11:20Speaker 5: Brass rods hanging down around that taniwha and those represent the reeds of the river, the stream that was down
116. 11:31Speaker 5: Queen Street. So what a phenomenal story to be telling, bringing all that back to life, right?
117. 11:35Speaker 2: Yeah.
118. 11:36Speaker 1: And so you've been reporting on the CRL, I mean, since it was but a flicker in Lynne Brown's eye.
119. 11:42Speaker 2: I suppose.
120. 11:43Speaker 1: What are the first kind of stories that you wrote about the process, I suppose?
121. 11:48Speaker 5: Back to 2012, that was when the entity, City Rail Link, first began to acquire the properties.
122. 11:55Speaker 2: And in New Zealand, we own to the centre of the earth.
123. 11:58Speaker 5: So if you're going to put something in underneath someone's property, you've got to get their consent. Now, there was a famous example, a property in Pitt Street, where the owners
124. 12:08Speaker 5: objected and said, look, we might build apartments on this property, and you putting a tunnel through means that we can't go down and build a lot of underground car parks.
125. 12:18Speaker 5: So there was a lot of litigation that went on at the time of the purchases, which was last decade.
126. 12:23Speaker 1: So what happened then? They had to secure all of the land and I suppose the areas underneath the land.
127. 12:29Speaker 1: And what was the next major milestone that you can remember?
128. 12:33Speaker 2: Exactly. Getting the route secure. That was last decade.
129. 12:35Speaker 5: The second big thing was signing the tunnel boring contract.
130. 12:39Speaker 5: So this is the contract to get the big international firms like Vinci and Solentashi Baki and New Zealand firms like Downer and Tonkin and Taylor and others in to
131. 12:50Speaker 5: form what they called the Link Alliance, if you're going to pronounce it the French way, because it was the French leading it. And the Link Alliance was basically the
132. 12:59Speaker 5: entity which built the tunnels underground, which built what we're.
133. 13:04Speaker 2: Sitting in now, which was phenomenal. I mean, an incredible achievement, right?
134. 13:09Speaker 1: And I remember you telling me that you'd never seen so many well-dressed men in your life when that signing took place.
135. 13:16Speaker 5: 2019 and it was at the former CPO and of course the tunnels had to come out of Waitemata Station, go across Tikumiti Tanga Square underneath the big PWC centre
136. 13:28Speaker 5: and then right up Albert Street. So yes there we were with Vinci and Solentashi Baki and all the Mainly French, actually.
137. 13:37Speaker 5: The international heavyweights in the tunnel boring area seemed to be French and never seen so many good suits. And they were very, very.
138. 13:47Speaker 2: Gracious and very welcoming.
139. 13:49Speaker 5: It was exciting because the mayor was Phil Goff. The transport minister was Phil Twyford. and the Deputy Mayor Bill Cashmore were there as well. So I remember getting all
140. 13:59Speaker 5: the photographs and getting all that together, and that was a big milestone. Signing that contract, extremely important.
141. 14:06Speaker 1: When we talk about the City Rail Link, we talk about bringing life back into the city centre and how it's been dismal and despairing for so many years now.
142. 14:16Speaker 1: What do you honestly think that this will do for the Auckland CBD?
143. 14:21Speaker 5: Well, already there have been big property purchases that have occurred just on the eve of the opening. So a big transaction has occurred just right near this station, tens
144. 14:31Speaker 5: of millions of dollars. And one of the reasons that the purchasers cited was the City Rail Link. And they said they've been all around the world to look at the way that train stations enliven a CBD and bring
145. 14:44Speaker 5: more people in and make the properties more valuable. So that's precisely what we're about to see here.
146. 14:49Speaker 1: Right and so and I suppose because the City Rail Link's been on the agenda for so long that a lot of other properties and property developers around the CBD have it on their radar as well right?
147. 14:59Speaker 5: Well it was destructive to a lot of you know tenants and a lot of building owners for a long time while it was being built but all these big
148. 15:07Speaker 5: infrastructure projects are always very destructive. The light rail on the Gold Coast, the light rail through the centre of Edinburgh, look at stories about that and um right through the
149. 15:19Speaker 5: centre of Sydney, you know, light rail as well. Retailers complaining for years about being behind, you know, sort.
150. 15:27Speaker 2: Of mesh walls, fences, and people not being able to find them.
151. 15:31Speaker 5: I remember trying to find a friend in Sydney and she's like, we're here behind the fence, you can't find us though. It was a 12 kilometre light rail going into Sydney, right, which is a game changer for Sydney.
152. 15:42Speaker 5: And no one talks about that anymore. So painful to go through, but extraordinary in terms of the outcomes.
153. 15:48Speaker 1: So obviously we're sitting in a very flashy station now and everyone's going to come and look at it and be like, well, it's very New York, very London.
154. 15:54Speaker 3: Et cetera.
155. 15:55Speaker 1: But logistically, what is the CRL going to do to travel times around Auckland?
156. 16:01Speaker 5: What it's going to do is considerably shorten the travel time.
157. 16:04Speaker 5: So from the west, for example, I think it's something like 35 minutes is going to be chopped off from coming on that western line into the city. It's only
158. 16:14Speaker 5: going to take something like 24 minutes to come from Waitakere into Auckland.
159. 16:18Speaker 2: Te Waihoru too, which is extraordinary.
160. 16:20Speaker 5: I mean, I love the fact that a transport minister in Australia asked about her job. She said, my job is to get people home quicker. And I love that
161. 16:30Speaker 5: focus on the idea of people having a better life as a result of city rolling, being safer, getting to work faster, getting home faster, and it actually being a
162. 16:41Speaker 5: really pleasant experience.
163. 16:43Speaker 2: That's what it's going to be about.
164. 16:44Speaker 1: And it is important as well when we talk about, I mean, I think that's something that's lost often when we talk about congestion and people on the motorways stuck in their cars and how long it takes to get
165. 16:56Speaker 1: from point A to point B is that you are missing out on time with your friends and family.
166. 17:01Speaker 5: I just loved what that transport minister said. I just thought that is the focus. Hei tangata, right? The people and the people's lives and how you can improve their lives.
167. 17:10Speaker 5: So Some of the people who I deal with, shall we say, the developers, are not always very enthusiastic about this, but they're not.
168. 17:16Speaker 2: Going to be riding this train, right?
169. 17:18Speaker 5: They're going to be in their fancy cars driving from their work underground to their beautiful garage at home with their fleets of cars.
170. 17:24Speaker 2: It's not aimed at them. It's aimed at people like me getting to work.
171. 17:29Speaker 5: And I think of all those colleagues who for years walked from the Waitemata Station up to NZME. That's a bit of a hike and not always good in the
172. 17:39Speaker 5: middle of winter. And now they'll be able to come in.
173. 17:42Speaker 5: I've got a friend with a house down in Manurewa.
174. 17:46Speaker 5: Now she'll be able to come in, go through these stations, but just within a block, be within a block between the work and the train station.
175. 17:55Speaker 2: Extraordinary. We deserve it, right? Auckland deserves this.
176. 17:59Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've already seen, you know, Karangahape Road, for instance, they're doing a farmer's market every Saturday and they do other markets and things and activations on Thursdays and Sundays
177. 18:09Speaker 1: and things. So you can kind of start starting to feel that energy.
178. 18:14Speaker 2: Well, it's really.
179. 18:15Speaker 5: Unfortunate that CRL's opening has actually hit the downturn, the four and a half year slump, right? Because normally you would see that activation around these stations every.
180. 18:25Speaker 2: Come a lot faster.
181. 18:26Speaker 5: It's just going to take a bit of time until people start pouring the money in.
182. 18:30Speaker 2: It's just, you can hardly put into words the effect that this is going to have on Aucklanders' lives. It opens up a world of possibilities. And it opens on Sunday.
183. 18:41Speaker 2: How good is that?
184. 18:42Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Anne.
185. 18:43Speaker 2: Thank you.
186. 18:47Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
187. 18:54Speaker 1: at nzherald.co.nz. The Front Page is hosted and produced by me, Chelsea Daniels. Kane Dickey is our studio operator, Richard Martin,
188. 19:04Speaker 1: our producer and editor, and our executive producer is Jane Yee.
189. 19:09Speaker 1: Follow The Front Page on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts and join us next time for another look beyond the headlines.