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%
in the 12 months to Apr-2015
·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.”
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.”