Greater connectivity by public transport
About making greater connectivity by public transport
City Rail Link (CRL)
City Rail Link (CRL) is now well under construction. Scheduled to open in 2024, it will add two new underground railway stations in the city centre. This will double city centre rail capacity to over 30,000 per hour. The capacity increase is equivalent to adding 16 extra motorway lanes into the city centre.
This major improvement in connectivity will stimulate development around the new stations. It will also increase the size of the city centre's labour market catchment.
When the CRL is complete, twice as many Aucklanders will be within 30 minutes’ travel of the city centre by rail.
See the City Rail Link website for more information.
Buses
Buses are critical to city centre access and will continue to carry a significant number of people to and around the city centre.
Bus lanes on busy bus corridors have been successful in providing reliable and frequent services for an increasing number of passengers. For comparison, moving the same number of people along Fanshawe Street in private vehicles would need the road to be 20 lanes wide.
Better bus circulation
More investment is required to improve the customer experience and make bus operations more efficient, reliable, coherent and fit for the urban environment.
Bus circulation will focus on key corridors including:
- Fanshawe Street
- Symonds Street
- Albert Street
- the planned Wellesley Street bus corridor
- Customs Street.
The busiest bus corridors will be upgraded to:
- prioritise reliable bus operations
- shorten bus travel times
- improve customer experience
- improve pedestrian connections to buses and other public transport.
This requires upgrading infrastructure on bus corridors, plus stops and interchanges with off-street facilities.
Ferries
Investment is underway to increase city centre accessibility by ferry.
Stage 1 of the Downtown Ferry Basin Redevelopment delivers six new ferry berths along the western edge of Queen's Wharf.
This will increase ferry capacity significantly, while integrating with the existing public open spaces on Queen's Wharf.
Future rapid transit
The increase in bus transport is causing significant congestion in some areas. Many city centre streets cannot handle the volume of buses and passengers commuting to and from the city during peak times.
Bus congestion, even with the new fleet of double-decker buses, remains an issue. Many city centre streets cannot handle the volume of people trying to get into the city and home during peak times.
This has led to the government's proposal to develop further rapid transit lines in Auckland.
Future rapid transit projects
- Light rail transit between the city centre and Māngere (CC2M).
- A future rapid transit connection to the northwest.
See the NZTA website for more information about light rail in Auckland.
Related information
More information about connected city centre
