Comments on the City Rail Link, and City Finances

 

From Councillor Christine Fletcher via her Facebook page. Note the post was on public setting.

Public fear around crippling rate increases is real. I will not support a major increase in rates and understand the issues of affordability for Aucklanders. Council must not drive people out of their homes because they cannot afford to pay their rates. My consistent policy position has been that we identify within our balance sheet ways to fund the CRL and additional parks investment without putting pressure on rates. Rationalisation of non-core council assets must be considered.

Reinvesting underperforming assets into sorely needed new infrastructure makes common sense and is necessary to meet the priority and demands of exponential growth in Auckland, without unfairly burdening the ratepayer. I support the CRL because it is critical to the functionality of the existing investment we have made in rail over the last twenty years.

Britomart is currently a dead end station. The CRL will turn Britomart into a through station, resolving the ludicrous situation where trains have to queue for long periods in order to enter. It is a necessary part of optimising our investment in rail and the benefits will reverberate throughout the region allowing for a significant increase of capacity for the whole rail network. The CRL will see reductions in the pressure on our roads, reduces rail travel times and increase rail services particularly from the West and the South. The opening up of our train network through the CRL will also enable the efficiencies of our investment in electrification of our rail network to be realised.

With major arterial roads such as Mt Eden Road and Dominion Road being expected to run out of capacity by early 2020’s, delaying the CRL is not an option.

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The Budget Committee meets tomorrow as I have alluded to here: Budget Committee Discusses THE BUDGET