Strong patronage growth illustrated needed for continued investment
As the Auckland motorways are grid locked owing to multiple accidents at the time I wrote this all four Lines on the rail network were running clear in getting people home from work tonight. But there will be a time very soon where the rail network will need that missing link built to open up the latent capacity needed to move more Aucklanders.
From Voxy
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% 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 star
—ends—
See: Budget 2015: Even PwC Stipulates Need For City Rail Link to Unlock South Auckland on pressing need for the CRL (Auckland Transit Link).
Talking Southern Auckland 
Waa Waa Waa. I bet the numbers were fudged just to get in Liar Lens good books. It seems very handy that so called patronage increases happen just when you want them. Too many lies told by council & AT. Don’t tell me they are genuine numbers.
They are from the AT HOP data collected by Auckland Transport.
If you believe the data is fudged by AT you know how to file a complaint to the Office of the Auditor General