Auckland is digging a 3.5 km twin tunnel under its CBD to run 19th-century steel-on-steel trains. The project, originally budgeted far lower, has ballooned to $5.5 billion. Auckland ratepayers and taxpayers are on the hook for billions upfront with rate payers coughing up $220–$265 million every year in operating, interest and depreciation costs. That is real money sucked out of productive parts of the economy.
This is government at its most predictable: always looking backwards. When new technology screams opportunity, politicians and bureaucrats reach for Victorian-era solutions wrapped in 21st-century rhetoric.
Imagine instead a genuine 21st-century system. The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop is already operational. It uses electric Tesla vehicles in tunnels, driverless or minimally crewed, delivering passengers in safety, comfort and speed. Built in roughly a year for a fraction of CRL’s cost — the original LVCC section came in at around $47 million. It moves thousands per hour and tens of thousands per day at fares around US$12. No taxpayer mega-subsidy. No endless operating deficits. Just rapid, on-demand transport that scales.
Auckland could have offered The Boring Company a showcase project: dig the tunnels privately, run a fleet of electric Teslas, and charge users directly. Zero cost to ratepayers and taxpayers. Door-to-door convenience. No waiting on platforms. No fixed timetables. Real 21st-century mobility.
Instead we get CRL. Let’s do the maths that exposes the madness.
$5.5 billion capital cost. Even using optimistic projections of around 20,000–30,000 daily passengers in the early years (well below the long-term peak-hour claims), the capital cost alone works out at well over $150,000–$200,000 per daily passenger, i.e. the "Capital Cost per Daily Boarding" -- a useful metric in cost-effectiveness analysis. Add the annual $220+ million running costs and the insanity deepens. This is not transport infrastructure. It is a slow-motion fiscal train wreck.
Governments love rail because it looks impressive, locks in jobs and lets them play central planner. They hate flexible, innovative, private solutions because those expose how outdated their thinking is. And they no longer control where and how we live.
The population is ageing and fertility is collapsing. We cannot afford white elephants that deliver yesterday’s technology at tomorrow’s prices. Auckland deserved forward-looking transport. Instead it got a very expensive hole in the ground for very old trains.
Scrap the nostalgia projects. Open the city to genuine innovation. The future does not run on 19th-century rails. It drives on electric autonomy — faster, cheaper and without the endless bill to ratepayers. CRL is not progress. It is expensive proof that government transport policy remains stuck in the past.
Indeed, with driverless cars we won’t need the tunnels, we won’t need public transport and unbelievable space in cities will be freed because we won’t need the car parks.
The world is digital and yet our government is subsidising the pony express.
Rodney Hide is a former Minister and leader of the ACT Party. This article was sourced from HERE.
Imagine instead a genuine 21st-century system. The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop is already operational. It uses electric Tesla vehicles in tunnels, driverless or minimally crewed, delivering passengers in safety, comfort and speed. Built in roughly a year for a fraction of CRL’s cost — the original LVCC section came in at around $47 million. It moves thousands per hour and tens of thousands per day at fares around US$12. No taxpayer mega-subsidy. No endless operating deficits. Just rapid, on-demand transport that scales.
Auckland could have offered The Boring Company a showcase project: dig the tunnels privately, run a fleet of electric Teslas, and charge users directly. Zero cost to ratepayers and taxpayers. Door-to-door convenience. No waiting on platforms. No fixed timetables. Real 21st-century mobility.
Instead we get CRL. Let’s do the maths that exposes the madness.
$5.5 billion capital cost. Even using optimistic projections of around 20,000–30,000 daily passengers in the early years (well below the long-term peak-hour claims), the capital cost alone works out at well over $150,000–$200,000 per daily passenger, i.e. the "Capital Cost per Daily Boarding" -- a useful metric in cost-effectiveness analysis. Add the annual $220+ million running costs and the insanity deepens. This is not transport infrastructure. It is a slow-motion fiscal train wreck.
Governments love rail because it looks impressive, locks in jobs and lets them play central planner. They hate flexible, innovative, private solutions because those expose how outdated their thinking is. And they no longer control where and how we live.
The population is ageing and fertility is collapsing. We cannot afford white elephants that deliver yesterday’s technology at tomorrow’s prices. Auckland deserved forward-looking transport. Instead it got a very expensive hole in the ground for very old trains.
Scrap the nostalgia projects. Open the city to genuine innovation. The future does not run on 19th-century rails. It drives on electric autonomy — faster, cheaper and without the endless bill to ratepayers. CRL is not progress. It is expensive proof that government transport policy remains stuck in the past.
Indeed, with driverless cars we won’t need the tunnels, we won’t need public transport and unbelievable space in cities will be freed because we won’t need the car parks.
The world is digital and yet our government is subsidising the pony express.
Rodney Hide is a former Minister and leader of the ACT Party. This article was sourced from HERE.
6 comments:
What the heck? The CRL is a massive step forward for mass transit and brings NZ one step closer to being a modern country. Has Rodney ever been to a real city with real mass transit?
Public transport is so much more efficient and cost effective economically. This has been proven by business case after business case, and borne out by results. Aged people and those with disabilities are keen users and many would be lost without it. It links people, jobs and facilities together and unlocks the city. Anyone who has spent more than 24 hours in a proper city has experienced this. Not only that, but every person out of a car and into a train means more space in the roads and faster travel times for those still in cars and buses.
Baffling take, and all the worse that Rodney has obviously used AI to write it. Again.
This is a blatantly invalid comparison. The Las Vegas setup is standalone and does not form part of an integrated network. The Las Vegas underground strata is entirely different from Auckland - much more straightforward, no need to deal with ups and downs, granite, a mess of pipes and services. Las Vegas is for consumers on holiday who are happy to pay through the nose for breakfast let alone a taxi trip. Las Vegas does not cater for disabled or elderly. I could go on and on but as the saying goes: it takes an order of magnitude more effort to dispute nonsense compared to the effort required to generate it!
Another Musk vanity project.
If it was such a brilliant success why has nobody else adopted it ?
Atmospheric Railways were once considered viable, all doomed to failure.
Not that much difference between them and the Boring Company trials.
Hmm, it sounds great. Will it ever happen? Factor in cost overruns, say double or triple. Where will the engineers and workers come from? What happens if ratepayers ability to contribute decreases?
Apparently the project has not been executed efficently but the general tenor of the argument is nuts.
My family is contribuitng far more than average because their relativly valuable pleasant 1920s house is now zoned for 10 storeys hard alongside, the threat of which devalues enormously and the event of which will do so vastly more. Unfortunately they were not flooded so not bought out and enabled to flee to Australia.
Auckland - underground rail service.
Those who read the article and comments I wonder if you would "believe" if I said -
- "That if the Auckland City Council, at the time, had considered what Sir Dove Myer-Robinson (Mayor Auckland City 1959 - 1980) put forward, that is the creation of an underground rail system based on what was used in London (the London Underground Transport System), that Auckland would have had that transport in place today".
Sir Dove Myer - Robinson had spent quality time, with research and visitation to those City's that underground public transport, accumulated - files, data, photographs (& video I believe) - that he used to create his "Concept" on such a system, believing that the London function was best suited for Auckland.
Sadly, he was not treated with respect and the "idea" was quickly "buried".
Also, I have heard the statement -
"New Zealand does not know how to create systems like this, and we see that as being evident, with this build, with issues with building and the pre set budget now being an overrun of costs and it is still not functioning properly".
If anyone is interested - go to You Tube and search for video's on how they built the Elizabeth Line (an addition to existing systems) - all done without issue.
Oh and also look at how they created the link from Heathrow to City Centre and imagine, just what a system in Auckland could be like - or have I expended my thoughts after to many Cannabis ciggy's???
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