Wayne Brown needs to start sacking some people and get control of the organisation.
Some train services have been delayed or cancelled again in Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland on Tuesday, due to overheating tracks.
As a result of trains having to go slower, trains on all lines are running less frequently, Auckland Transport (AT) said on X.
“Due to KiwiRail train speed restrictions there will be some delays and cancellations to services today,” the agency said.
It’s the second day in a row of cancellations, after several services were cancelled on Monday, also due to heat.
AT’s public transport director Stacey van der Putten said in a statement the organisation was disappointed with the disruption yesterday, due to the hot tracks.
“These speed restrictions would be unlikely to be needed today if the Auckland rail network was not vulnerable because of numerous known faults,” she added.
Van der Putten told Newshub a week ago that a whopping 35 percent of cancelled trains in January were due to overheated tracks.
Newshub
Uhmm…it was hotter last week and there were no cancellations. This is absolute rubbish: 24 degrees is hardly a scorcher. How come trains in warmer climates continue to operate?
In the UK, the rail operator explains how heat affects rails:
When Britain enjoys a summer heatwave, rails in direct sunshine can be as much as 20°C hotter than air temperature. Because rails are made from steel, they expand as they get hotter, and can start to curve this is known as ‘buckling’.
Most of the network can operate when track temperatures heat up to 46°C – roughly equivalent to air temperature of around 30°C – but rails have been recorded at temperatures as high as 51°C.
How we keep trains running in high temperatures
When our remote monitoring systems tell us that a section of track might be expanding too much and could cause problems, we introduce local speed restrictions. Slower trains cause lower forces on the track – this reduces the chance of buckling.
Network Rail
At 24 degrees in Auckland, this isn’t even close to reaching a critical point and, as has been pointed out, there were four days last week hotter than the days AT closed the line. Someone is telling fibs.
Then we find out that in just one suburb, Pt Chevalier, AT is installing 28 $500,000 raised pedestrian crossings.
Auckland Transport (AT) is proceeding with at least 28 raised pedestrian crossings as part of a $29.3 million cycling and road improvement project between Point Chevalier and Westmere.
Following revelations that crossings are costing up to $500,000, AT launched a review last month for opportunities to minimise the number and the cost of crossings.
Last month, the Herald revealed AT has chewed through $6m on 12 signalised crossings at an average cost of $500,000, and Mayor Wayne Brown raged over the cost of a $490,000 crossing near his Ponsonby home, saying AT had “lost the plot”.
“That’s not a new pedestrian crossing. It’s taking an old pedestrian crossing and spending $490,000 turning it from a pedestrian crossing into a pedestrian crossing, which was working fine,” Brown said.
When it comes to the Pt Chevalier/Meola Road/Westmere project, AT said 28 of the 29 raised crossings are proceeding unchanged, and just one crossing on Pt Chevalier Rd is being reviewed from a raised to a zebra crossing.
“Our review will carefully consider safety levels and performance,” AT said.
The 29 crossings are situated on main and side roads the length of the project – 15 on Pt Chevalier Rd, seven on Meola Rd, and seven on Garnet Rd.
NZ Herald
What the actual hell! 28 crossings at $500,000 a pop, just in Pt Chev? That’s $14 MILLION for pedestrian crossings, in just one suburb!
AT needs to tell us how many pedestrians have been run over, injured or killed in Pt Chev which requires such a massive expenditure to be incurred to calm the traffic in the suburb. Is there a preponderance of hoons speeding dangerously or have Russell Brown and Simon Wilson been causing havoc with their battery-powered bicycles, complete with pannier bags?
It’s insane. Wayne Brown better grab someone at AT by the scruff of the neck and get that organisation under control and fast, otherwise come the election next year we will be flushing him as we did to the last Brown who was an idiot.
The time for excuses is over. He’s been the mayor for a year, and he’s done stuff all. Aucklanders deserve better. Maybe Simon Bridges will put his hand up. He’s a former Transport minister too, so he’d know a thing or two about this issue.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
NZTA publishes standards for 'pedestrian platforms' aka raised crossings. Included is the standard that they should be used where 'traffic volumes are less than 3000 vehicles per day'. This recommendation is blatantly disregarded by AT who of course know better. I am sure that the traffic volumes in Meola St would be greater than 3000 cars per day? Another standard notes 'On their own pedestrian platforms provide a focus for pedestrians to cross, however pedestrians must still give way to vehicles.'
I have been catching akl trains but have had to stop and go back to my car recently. This is due to never knowing when the train will go. The onehunga line no longer goes direct and often cancels suddenly, a few minutes before it's due to depart, leaving passengers stranded. You can walk to the bus stop and wait for a bus, but this option takes double the time and you will be late for work with this option also. A disgruntled phone emplyee of AT told me to complain to my mp. They have recently raised fares also for services that don't exist. It has also becone woke, with many of the announcements in te reo, which adds to the confusion. It is just not worth putting yourself through such stress if you are working. They seem to use a whole bag of made-excuses for the daily disrupts. I think the real reason is that they don't have the staff.
Frankly I'm more surprised that its not now referred to as TMT ?
I will bet that MTT / AT meetings start with a karakia, all the members wear pounamu carvings around their necks which bob up and down in synchronicity with their heads saying "Yes" to every absurd proposal.
A hot day? Compared to what Melbourne/Victoria had to contend with on 13/2 it was not a hot day.
AT as a transport agency is a disgrace. They own nothing and they are the only ones who are happy. The don't manage transport - they only manage contracts. Anything that goes wrong is always someone else's fault. As a customer who pays AT, I don't care if their supplier is at fault, I just want the service I paid for. But AT works at a different level altogether. Complain to them about the bus service or driver and they will say that NZ Bus is to blame. Tell them that a bus stop is vandalised and they will say the maintenance company is to blame. In short, everyone else in the world except they are responsible for all the mess. When I learnt that AT is having a press conference about the train cancellations, I expected them to first apologise to the public for inconveniencing them and providing a suitable solution or tender resignation. Instead, all we heard was simply blaming KiwiRail. But I'm not a customer of KiwiRail, so I don't care what they did wrong! AT is the kind of supplier who, when you call to complain about something, will simply tell you that they are yelling at their supplier - as if that is supposed to make you happy.
Auckland Council should simply disband AT and open up public transport to the free market. I'm sure a third world PT run on capitalist principles would be more efficient than what we see here. Yet another entity that has contributed to the demise of Auckland :(
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