Getting to Auckland's City Centre: What Changes When the City Rail Link Opens

What actually changes

Auckland Transport · City Rail Link Limited

The City Rail Link changes where the trains stop.

Auckland's city centre currently has one train station, Waitematā (Britomart), and it is a terminus — the end of the line, at the northern edge of the city centre by the waterfront. Whether you travel in from the west, the east or the south, the train sets you down in the same place. If your destination is mid Queen Street, Aotea, the universities or Wellesley Street, the last part of the journey is a ten to fifteen minute walk uphill, or a transfer to a bus.

• Te Waihorotiu Station serves midtown, around Aotea. Auckland Transport expects it to become the busiest train station in New Zealand.
• Karanga-a-Hape Station serves uptown, with entrances at Mercury Lane and Beresford Square, giving direct access to Karangahape Road.
• Maungawhau Station is rebuilt as an interchange between the CRL and the Western Line.
• Waitematā Station is converted from a terminus into a two-way through station, which Auckland Transport says lets the whole network carry more services and operate more efficiently.

For a commuter, the practical version is short: you no longer have to reach the city centre and then travel through it.

The journey times Auckland Transport has published

Auckland Transport, published journey examples

• The west shows the largest saving. At 24 minutes, Henderson to Te Waihorotiu is the largest figure in the published set — around a quarter more than the next.
• Two of the four examples are to Karangahape Road, a destination with no train station at all today.
• The savings are not proportional to distance. Ellerslie is closer to the city centre than Panmure, yet its published saving is larger — the size of the saving depends on how awkward the current journey is, not how far it is.

How to read these figures against your own trip

Auckland Transport states that the time savings are measured against current public transport options. That means the comparison is door-to-door, and the saving includes the part of the journey you currently walk.

This is not a problem with the numbers. It reflects what they measure: a complete journey rather than a station-to-station leg. For most commuters the complete journey is the more useful comparison — but it is worth knowing which of the two situations you are in.

Auckland Transport's Journey Planner can be switched between the current network and the CRL network, so the most reliable answer for any individual trip is to enter your own origin and destination rather than apply an average.

The reorganised lines: who needs to change how they travel

Auckland Transport, published network changes

Auckland Transport has said the timetable changes completely and every line is affected.

• East West Line (E-W) — Swanson to Manukau via the CRL. The Eastern and Western Lines are combined, which creates through journeys between the west and the east without changing trains. Auckland Transport gives Mount Albert to Sylvia Park as an example of a trip that becomes a single train.
• South City Line (S-C) — Pukekohe to the city centre via the CRL.
• Onehunga West Line (O-W) — Onehunga to Henderson off-peak, and Onehunga to Maungawhau at peak times.

How often trains will run

Auckland Transport, initial opening timetable

• Peak: a train every four to five minutes through the city centre.
• Off-peak and weekends: every 15 minutes throughout the day, compared with every 20 minutes at present.
• Elsewhere on the network: around 10 minutes on average at peak.

The off-peak change is the one most easily overlooked. A 15 minute all-day frequency is the point at which most people stop consulting a timetable before leaving the house — which matters more to travel outside commuting hours, such as appointments, shopping or travelling with children, than the peak figure does.

Auckland Transport has also said that services will begin on an initial timetable for the first few months, with frequencies increased after that. It describes this as standard practice for major rail projects internationally.

A starting point, not a finished network

What the network looks like on the first day is not what it is designed to do.

• Frequencies are planned to increase. The opening timetable is deliberately conservative; Auckland Transport has said services will be built up after the first few months.
• The terminus constraint is removed. Waitematā previously required every train to arrive, stop and reverse out. As a through station it no longer does, and Auckland Transport states the network as a whole gains capacity and operates more efficiently as a result.
• Cross-town travel becomes possible without the city centre. The East West Line links places that were previously separated by the need to pass through the middle. Effects of this kind usually emerge over several years rather than immediately.
• The centre of gravity of the city centre shifts. The most rail-accessible point stops being a single station at the waterfront and becomes an axis of three.

Need a comparison built around your own situation?

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