Free Station? No Auckland Transport decides to go screw the scrum

 

I noticed Papakura Courier’s Dubby Henry and Papakura Local Board member Brent Catchpole were around the Walters Road rail-crossing recently, was wondering if it was going to be on Glenora Road Station to which the accompanying article is.

It seems Auckland Transport are going to screw the Takanini/Papakura area out of effectively what is a free rail station with a flanking park and ride next to it.

 

From Stuff (Papakura Courier)

Glenora bill soars

 DUBBY HENRY

The future looks grim for the proposed Glenora Train Station now the developers who offered to build it for free have been hit with a huge price rise by transport officials.

The long-awaited station would have sat around 1km from Takanini Station and 2.6km from Papakura Station and service Addison, Bruce Pulman Park, Southgate and a future Takanini High School.

The idea built up steam last year after a group of retail and housing developers from both sides of the railway line offered to cover the cost of building the station and provide land for a park-and-ride.

Talks with the developers and the Papakura Local Board led planners to draw up a discussion paper outlining the pros and cons and preconditions for the station to be built.

The paper, released to the Papakura Courier under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, is cautiously optimistic.

The proposal is “a welcome one that in principle could support the pattern of growth and intensification envisaged in the Auckland Plan”, it says.

Auckland Council and Auckland Transport (AT) support an additional station at Glenora in principle provided rail, intensification and funding requirements are all met.

Preconditions include the closure of Te Mahia Station and adequate population growth in Takanini.

Local board deputy chairman Brent Catchpole says AT thought the station was a good idea on the proviso the developers paid and gave the board a rough forecast of $6.5 million to build it.

“We thought, brilliant, we’ve now got it into the mix,” says Mr Catchpole, who holds the board’s transport portfolio. But over the summer AT appears to have done an about-turn.

Council and transport officials arrived “en masse” to a meeting in March and hit the local board “out of the blue” with a new quote of $35 million, he says.

The extra $28 million was for “grade separation” – removing the level crossing at nearby Walters Rd and replacing it with either a bridge or an underpass.

Officials did not explain why a new station would hasten the need for that, he says.

New electric trains and the building of the inner city rail link will increase train frequency which will mean more holdups for cars at Walters Rd but that’s “a totally separate issue”, Mr Catchpole says. Pressure is already on AT to grade-separate all level crossings throughout the city in partnership with KiwiRail.

But Mr Catchpole says those agencies are “abdicating their responsibility” by shifting the cost of the job on to someone else.

“I don’t see why it should fall on developers or the Papakura Local Board to cover the cost,” Mr Catchpole says.

“We feel as though those sorts of figures are being included to discourage us from trying to do it.”

Mr Catchpole is promising to keep pushing AT to work with the developers and “be proactive with planning, not reactive and waiting until demand is really high”

So if I understand this properly; Takanini/Addison/Papakura were due to get a nice new rail station at Glenora Road with a flanking park and ride (and maybe even a bus interchange) to support the rapidly growing area. The station would have been built for “free” to the ratepayer and at no cost to the council. If the station is built it would become my “home” station rather than Papakura as current. The station by 2021 would serve 15,000 people in a rapidly growing area of Auckland and through raw patronage would have paid itself many times over quickly.

I have covered such a station before in my Rail Efficiency Program Series, ATB have done the same as well. You can see Glenora Road Station being mentioned by my last round of commentary in the “THE RAIL EFFICIENCY PROGRAM #5a” post

But no. Auckland Transport decide to go screw the scrum and screw us out of a free station by adding an extra $28m to the figure. That $28m as mentioned to separate the Walters Road Crossing which is needed owing to heavy car and rail traffic. However it is for Auckland Transport and Kiwi Rail to pay for the separation NOT the developers. As said also in the article AT is basically passing the buck and responsibility off which hurts local residents and businesses (including myself).

A free station with Park and Ride and AT go thumb their noses at it. Shame on Auckland Transport and also shame by extension on Council as well for allowing this to happen. So come on AT and Council get with the program and try to do some proactive rather than reactive planning for once!

If Auckland Transport would like to offer a decent explanation on hauling South Auckland over the barrel again, the comment box is open below…