Ryan Bridge: The CRL has to hit the ground running and forget its transitional timetable

As far as conditions go ahead of a grand opening, you couldn’t do much better than a petrol price spike for the City Rail Link.

Construction and testing will be finished within three months.

Then it’s handed over to operators, who need another three months.

So we can use it from September.

Trains will depart every four to five minutes under the city.

The cost? $5.5 billion. Half of that is funded by the Crown, so Gore — you’ve pitched in here.

What’s more, Wayne Brown reckons the operational costs mean what would have been a zero per cent rates increase this year will instead be seven per cent.

So it’s pretty bloody important — given the scale of the capital and operational spend, and the size of current petrol bills — that this thing happens:

1. As quickly as possible
2. As conveniently as possible

On the latter point, transport experts — train people — are sounding the alarm bells.

That’s because AT is talking about a transitional timetable for the first six months, meaning fewer trains than we were promised. On the Western Line, train spacing could mean commuters end up waiting longer for their service than they do currently under the old system.

That would be a disaster.

This thing needs to sing in full voice from day dot — that’s when people will stress‑test it. First impressions are everything.

If there’s no material difference from day one, people may simply write it off.

So the pressure is on to get the CRL up and running sooner — and then operate it faster than the speed of sound.

Achieving the goal of transforming drivers into train riders depends on it.

And conditions have never been better.

Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB's Early Edition - where this article was sourced.