I don't want to sound like a negative thinking obstructionist, but ...

How much??

What else could it be spent on that might benefit more people?
Or did someone in Council decide "That sounds like a great idea, let's do it."??

Alfred, Anonymous,

Pull your heads in! We need a Parnell station to function as part of a future city ring route. An underground ring route would be fabulous for Auckland to enable an extension of rail to suburbs not currently serviced. I for one think it is long overdue for the Parnell station to be commissioned. Go and whinge somewhere else. It's time money was spent on public transpoirt in Auckland.

I couldn't agree more, some people don't seem to understand how huge a difference a comprehensive rail system makes. People just need to travel a little bit to discover this.

Comprehensive is the word. But unfortunately Auckland is not suited for such a rail network.
Good idea for rail transport out to lower working class areas such as southern, western catchments, but North Shore railed through to the Ak CBD, makes a nonsense of the brilliant new busways over the bridge.

Reply to Morgan Nichol

But Auckland isn't a "great" city in world standards. I don't think it is even in the largest 300 cities of the world. And let’s be honest, it is barely significant even in Australasia standards.
So we need to plan for the future and consider where Auckland will be in 20 years time...
A call centre for Sydney and Melbourne? There certainly won’t be many head offices left. Mid and senior level finance, banks, insurance roles will be centralised in Australia just like they were previously centralised in Auckland from the regions of New Zealand. That’s what happens when you don’t own your companies any more. Any manufacturing that is still left and owned by NZers will leave for cheaper land outside of Auckland.
Auckland simply can't afford a pointless rail system for our little city on this little island nation of 4 million, the rail loop is a serious waste of my rates, which, by the way, have gone up, despite my house being valued less now!
Let’s face the truth, rail is inferior in (1) speed, (2) flexibility and (3) cost compared to buses on dedicated bus lanes - anyone without historical romantic ideas of rail travel knows this. So lets stop trying to be something we are not.

I have no faith that these so called planning gurus could work out anything more complicated than lego. Would have thought the uni would be a target user group to get nearer rather than a park easier accessed on the level from top of Parnell or Newmarket. This placement means a hell of an uphill walk whichever way. As for wasting money, you need to look no further than the Wellington St onramp to see these guys love wasting money having built the thing but now changing their mind as to opening it up.

Well said....good memory.

Am assuming this article is advertorial.
Maybe something to do with trying to increase the property values in Parnell through the media????

Quicker to go by link bus.
By the time it would take you to walk to the Parnell Station you can already be in the city and beyond
Small thinkers you lot

I suppose this is all coming under the heading of progress. When the CBD Rail Loop is built, is when Auckland will really take-off and values rise. It will also add to the worth of the new station and those around it.
As for the North Shore Busway, consider it a temporary measure. There is a light railway being built at the Gold Coast right now - a busway would have been outgrown in a very short time as will the North Shore Busway surely. Build the CBD Loop and connect the Northshore with rail and the footprint's in place for a serious city - this is no doubt what Mr Brown is on about!

So all we need is rail, a fixed route, with single direction flow (unless duplicate rails), and very limited power options. And finally the only way to fund it is to get Govt Subsidies.

Buses can be powered by, petro, diesel, natural gas, elec, lpg, can be a huge range of sizes, can use all existing roads, can be withdrawn from service in unpopular suburbs and routed the up and coming popular suburbs.

Len Brown is great at committing our money to his pet projects, sorry inner city rail loop and extension lines are an utter waste, Browns Folly.

Smart planners put railway stations in the bottom of shopping malls, universities, hospitals, stadiums and near high density housing. We stick them in the bottom of a woodlands. a bit weir really. Macca

Jaffas just want everyone else to use public transport so there will be less conjestion allowing them to drive to work quicker. Auckland is just too important to leave it up to aucklanders to progress. Appoint Tim SHadbolt as mayor and finally some progress would happen.

“Let’s face the truth, rail is inferior in (1) speed, (2) flexibility and (3) cost compared to buses on dedicated bus lanes - anyone without historical romantic ideas of rail travel knows this.”

That’s a pretty blanket statement, unfortunately the ‘truth’ isn’t quite so simplistic. In regards to speed: any grade-separated rail line or busway is going to afford much greater travel speeds than dedicated street bus lanes, but given like for like a rail line would be faster. Auckland’s new electric train tender specifies a top service speed of 130km/h and regular acceleration and braking of 1.0ms-1. That is considerably faster and quicker than any bus even on a busway could achieve, let alone bus lanes.
In regards to flexibility: This I would agree with. Buses are more flexible, but you also have to ask why you would want flexibility on a trunk route like a rail line or busway, or for that matter a motorway or bridge. The fact they are inflexible is a benefit, they city develops around transport links, not the other way around.
In regards to cost: Yes dedicated bus lanes would be far cheaper than a rail line, but also far inferior in capacity and speed. To get the same level of capacity and speed you would need a full busway, but capital costs are much the same between building a new rail line and a new busway. Again like for like there is little difference in capex between bus and rail. As for operational costs buses can have substantially more expensive marginal costs per passenger. Consider that you need one bus and driver to move about 50 people, yet with a train you need one train and driver to move about 800. The staffing costs of trains on busy trunk routes is around 16 times lower than buses for that reason.

Just remember the goal of the council isn’t to replace every bus in Auckland with a train service, it is to construct an integrated public transport system based around a rapid transit core. Rail and busways are like the motorways of public transport, bus lanes like the arterial roads, and local buses like the collector streets.

I think it is fairly clear that Nick was talking about the number of drivers per passenger - 1 for a bus of 50 or so and the same number for a train carrying many times more passengers. The savings are pretty obvious in that regard, right?

I see what you are trying to say about other costs, but for everything you've listed there would be at least equivalent with roads and buses. Maintenance of train lines? Maintenance of roads. Road crossings? Intersections and traffic lights. Carriages? Buses.

Why the angst about giving more choice to take a train? It's not like they're going to take the existing roads away. In fact the amount the government is spending on them keeps going up despite falling traffic.