This Friday represents the first time we celebrate Matariki with a public holiday but it’s also represents the last time that trains on the Onehunga Line will go all the way to Britomart. Services are being cut back to Newmarket due to City Rail Link works but as I’ll explain later in the post, I suspect services are unlikely to be extended back again.
From Friday 24 June 2022, all Onehunga Line trains will start and finish at Newmarket Station. This is due to City Rail Link construction reducing the number of platforms at Britomart Station.
- Onehunga Line services will continue to operate on a 30-minute frequency to and from Newmarket Station, and will continue to be a limited stop service during peak travel hours.
- Customers traveling from Onehunga towards Britomart will be able to make easy and frequent transfers to Southern Line or Western Line services at Newmarket Station.
- Both lines have enough capacity for transiting passengers and operate at a 10-minute frequency during peak hours.
- Southern and Western Line services will provide connections between Newmarket and Britomart Stations. Scheduled bus services will also be available.
As noted above, the change is all to do with City Rail Link works.
The reduction in platforms in the first stage is to enable the two outside platforms (currently called 1 and 5) to be connected up to the CRL tunnels. But the reduction will be permanent, as in order to help the station cope with the expected increase in passengers as a result of the CRL, those two platforms are being made wider. That will be welcome as even now at busy times space on the platforms can be a bit tight.
Unfortunately there are no images of what the layout of platforms will be after the works are completed – I have asked CRL for it. I find it surprising that neither they nor Auckland Transport seem to have anything as I’d have thought it would be a useful tool to help explain to the public what is happening and why.
The Britomart works also include changes to the eastern end concourse and station access, making the platforms longer, moving some of the underground equipment rooms as well as improving the track layout approaching the station. These pieces of work involve having to move existing concrete walls and support structures.
While we don’t have a clear picture as to what the station will look like once the works are done, I see an answer on twitter to the question of why not just turn the Onehunga Line into higher-frequency shuttle between Onehunga and Penrose, line Nick suggested in this post.
We wanted to make the transfers as easy as possible and the connection to Southern Line services at Penrose station is slightly more complicated with a large walk up along ramps to Platforms 1 & 2, compared to a cross platform transfer at Newmarket.
Additionally, about 25% of existing customers from Onehunga and Te Papapa are going to Ellerslie and Newmarket. We wanted to reduce the need for a transfer for these customers where possible, which means only 60% of existing passengers are disrupted, instead of 85%
Given the current state and reliability of the rail network that makes some sense but that might change post-CRL.
And it’s the CRL as to why I think we’re unlikely to see Onehunga Line trains return to Britomart.
As we know, the CRL will see the network capacity significantly improve, but not straight away. At opening it will allow for about 15 trains per hour in each direction. That’s equivalent to about a 50% increase on what we have now and we’re going to need all of that new capacity to run additional six-car trains just to handle growth on the Eastern, Southern and Western lines. It’s hard to see a good rationale for reducing capacity on those other lines just to be able to to run a 3-car Onehunga Line train twice an hour.
So what happens to it, does it stay terminating at Newmarket?
The most likely outcome is it will form part of the ‘Purple‘ line – the idea of a west to south line that has shown up in previous post-CRL train plans. This is a slightly modified version of an old map to show this.
Longer term, and with (significant) additional investment, capacity of the CRL will rise to 24 trains per hour per direction and possibly even 9-car trains. That work also potentially includes an upgrade of the Onehunga Line however, by then we may have light rail built and for most trips that will likely be faster and more frequent and so more popular.
It will be interesting to see how the change goes and what impact it will have on usage, though the impact be lost in the noise in the post-Covid usage impact.
If you’re an existing Onehunga Line user, will you still catch the train?
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“and with (significant) additional investment”
What is this, apart from new signalling? Grade separating Britomart junction?
more trains, pretty sure more stabling / maintenance facilities too.
Then it’s also not just Britomart junction, although I don’t know if that one needs it, there is also Wiri and Westfield in particular. At britomart junction the freight trains are already gone, but at Westfield there are freight trains, and they’re important.
There’s all the grade separations, particularly on the western line.
*all the road rail grade separations on the western line, and out south.
Commuting to CBD via the Onehunga line has been great. I particularly like the Limited Stop service, meaning door to door is only 20-25 minutes from Ellerslie (including 10 mins walk to station).
The new changes make it less attractive to me, as the Southern Line is a slower and more crowded service (at times, AT only runs 3 car trains). The train delays and faults in recent months put doubt in my mind whether the train service is still reliable.
I may give the Newmarket station transfer a try, but Bus 70 might be more convenient.
That the 70 bus is a better option from Ellerslie over a train that runs every ten minutes isn’t a great reflection on the train service! I guess it depends a bit on where in the CBD you’re trying to get to though.
Does anyone know why AT are still running 3-car trains on the main lines? I thought the last of the new order that allowed all trains (excl Onehunga) to be 6-car arrived last year.
Pretty sure it’s because passenger numbers are still way down from the 2019 peak and AT are relatively cash strapped
They are not that empty. There is a virus going around….
“Does anyone know why AT are still running 3-car trains on the main lines? “
Because it’s slightly cheaper probably. Yea it’s ridiculous.
Better for environment. If the 3 car trains aren’t full why use that energy?
If it is, that is not the reason AT doing it.
The trains are already full. I wonder how many cars you would need to take off the roads to justify a 6 carriage train, probably less than one would do it.
The trains aren’t full generally. Even the half fare promotion hasn’t shifted it much, just too many years of disruption and unreliability.
Task of service provision is not to exactly match demand with supply (though looks great on spreadsheets and to accountants), but to oversupply service to improve experience and (especially) induce demand growth.
Whenever possible through increased frequency before bigger vehicles as more service choice is of the greatest benefit to users. Though the later is still preferable to crowded trains and platforms.
Because they pay CAF a maintenance fee per km run
It always seemed to me that it made more sense for Newmarket to be the hub of the system, rather than Britomart.
What I do not understand is the Onehunga Line schedule. Why not shift it 13 minutes forward and provide proper 4x hourly services through the suburban stations like Greenlane, Ellerslie, Remuera?
If you want to see the worst decision I have seen in transport in 35 years then go have a look at Mt Wellington Highway where they have signalised the left turn to the onramp southbound. There is a 1.5km queue on Mt Wellington Highway and the exits to Sylvia Park are blocked. Buses, cars and trucks are all trapped. Two cars or one bus per cycle can get out of Sylvia Park. The delay is huge and the emissions must be through the roof.
You can’t beat “Let’s rebuild SH16 and not do a busway”
Waka Kotahi decision or AT? Or both?
Both apparently.
How is that a bad decision? The queue is now exactly the same length it was before and people can safely cross the onramp
The queue is massively longer than before. During the interpeak there was minimal queue and now it extends 1.5km. They have basically mulched the capacity there, closed access out of a Metropolitan Centre and buggered up flow in every direction.
Worst of all they now have cars and trucks avoiding the left lane and turning across from the through lane so pedestrians (all 4 per hour) are still at risk.
This is a terrible design but the real question is how did they approve this? What sort of management failures resulted in this?
This is what surprises you?
When things like this exist, a mega intersection in a built up area with a grand total of zero pedestrian legs: https://goo.gl/maps/7PC3o5gYcimpMGZa7
At this point the NZTA / AT could put a car sized woodchipper in the middle of the road and people shouldn’t blink an eye.
None of that is made better or worse by what they have done. You could put the woodchipper on the northern side of Mt Wellington Highway now because the through lanes are often empty, traffic can’t get to them because the queue in the left lane is so incredibly long.
Bus timetables will need 20-30 minutes added.
Could have been someone playing stupid games with the phasing of this traffic light. Or maybe some defect.
I used to commute into Highbury in the morning from Glenfield, and this happened sometimes with the right turn towards Birkdale. Sometimes it would start giving only a few seconds of green time to that turn. The queue to turn right would then block the queue towards the city.
So yeah if something like this happens at a motorway on ramp I can easily imagine it clogging up an entire neighbourhood.
No they built a new layout at the interchange, realised it wouldn’t work so they didn’t turn it on for months. Then someone did turn it on and they have created mayhem.
Miffy, how about looking for a way to walk or cycle along Mt Wellington Hwy past the motorway? And notice that they who manage the motorway have done this to manage the southbound on-ramp, increasing the capacity northbound turning onto the on-ramp.
Yes they have managed to reduce the overall capacity of the southbound onramp. A small increase in capcity for the right turn on and a reduction of 3/4 of the capacity for the left turn on. Walking and cycling is no better, there is now a massive queue of angry people not to mention gridlock within a Metropolitan Town Centre. Don’t use the bus, you will be stuck for ages.
Curiously google maps shows Mt Wellington Highway heavily congested between the Sylvia Park entrances at Hamlin and Aranui, but only lightly congested between there and the motorway.
It also shows Te Putu Ave, Te Tata Ave, Mahora Way and Te Kehu Way as free flowing. Now they are queues of cars and buses emitting exhaust.
It is amazing how little it takes to ruin a transport system and astonishing how good some people are at finding the way to ruin it.
Anything happens on the network, Onehunga line is always the first to get cut, I wonder if this will result in the service being more robust. Given how complicated Newmarket and the westerns single line running, this could also go the other way.
I feel sad for people who bought Onehunga apartments.
When the developers selling the apartment, the train is useful.
Once the residents moves in, the train got nerfed.
Lesson learnt: public transport cannot be trusted. Always buy a house with carparks.
AT dropped the ball again and again…
Maybe a law case against AT for the angry apartment buyers.
I doubt many people bought an apartment in Onehunga without a car for a train every 30 mins. The few that did probably won’t be bothered by a transfer.
Disagree. I think in the housing market we’ve seen, people have been happy to be optimistic. That a reasonably central suburb with a train station, and a service that’s workable, just, is a place to buy, because the train service is likely to improve over time.
A single train transfer is far from the end of the world. Like I say there is a potential for the service to more reliable as a result.
Those trains are not on a frequent schedule, I would expect that transfer will make a round trip 20 to 30 minutes longer.
Between the Western and Southern line, it pretty much is frequent tho.
roeland – inbound you’re transferring to a train every 5 mins, outbound will require a bit more planning though. There’s plenty of trains to get you to Newmarket, just got to make sure you’re there in time for the Onehunga train.
As noted, transferring from an infrequent service to a frequent one is relatively easy.
But the other way round is poor: “just got to make sure you’re there in time for the Onehunga train” is a very big “just” and a real deterrent, much more easily said than done, particularly if the connection from the frequent train is not advertised or guaranteed.
I would hope they give the bus a try. When I lived in Onehunga I found the 302 and then the 30 more convenient with turn up and go frequencies at peak times. Train was a bit too unreliable for me.
They could easily make 24/7 transit lanes on Manukau Road and Khyber Pass for the 30 as an alternative.
Onehunga is essentially the Melling of the Auckland rail network (or the Timaru of Air NZ’s domestic network).
Anything happens to rail services in Wellington? Shut the Melling line and replace with buses.
Any issues on the Air NZ regional network? Cancel flights to Timaru and use the aircraft elsewhere.
Something needs to give in the Auckland rail network? Onehunga line takes the impact.
(Of course the rationale is because changes to these services will impact the fewest number of passengers across the network *as a whole*. But the flip side of this is that customers of those services lose faith in their reliability and give up on it completely.)
Can they squeeze two lines of LR instead of one line of HR from Penrose to Onehunga? A ten minute frequency LR with a (better) change at Penrose has to be more useful doesn’t it? Would be much cheaper to run too even with the higher frequency. That LR could potentially run all the way to airport / Avondale / Panmure at a later stage – but maybe now would be a good time to close the Onehunga line completely and chuck some LR in.
Potentially even build the part to Sandringham road too (which shouldn’t be too difficult?) so all that new Kainga Ora housing has some rapid transit before the 10+ years to build airport LR is complete.
Might be a political win to get an LR project actually underway…
Yes there is million smart things that could happen to built a light rail network. None of it will happen, because that will involve taking space from hyper energy and space inefficient car drivers.
So we get ALR in tunnels (maybe/probably not), to keep the car drivers happy. The car drivers don’t even realise and then just complain about the cost.
Can be run as a 10 minute service with a crossing loop at Te Papapa. Still not sure why anyone still supports a dumb LR scheme to the airport. Too expensive, too many GHG’s.
As Britomart station has lots of space, maybe Spanish solution boarding would be nice.
(NZ example)
This is where you will exit the train on the right hand side to a island platform and people wanting to board the train will enter from a side platform on the opposite side of the train. This massively speeds up boarding by preventing crowding around train doors, also made worse by our trains only having 4 doors per car.
The platforms that will be part of the CRL are 1 and 5 on the outsides so there isn’t room to use this model in Britomart even if there is decent space in the middle.
Actually there is, Britomart has false walls on either side and the actual structure is a few metres wider behind them. You could excavate them to have exit-only platforms. On the outer sides.
Good point, I’d forgotten about the extra space either side.
Where in Spain is this done?
Just did two weeks in trains there and did not see this once.
The design of transfer system assumes the train has less than 10 min frequency peak and off peak.
As soon as AT saves money and reduce frequency (like currently). The user experience around transferring will suffer.
Currently the bus system is broken because the frequency is so low and the user sitting in the transfer station for long time is not a good experience.
It’s a shame there’s no room for a stub platform at Newmarket where terminating services could sit without blocking through trains. They has all that old railway land and sold it off for carparks etc with only the absolute mininum left for trains. The same old story repeated over and over again in the 80s and the 90s.
Public transport really needs cross town services to counter the Waterview motorway route. My hope is the Henderson Onehunga route will be run limited stop so stops only at New Lynn, Newmarket and Ellerslie it could also run to Otahuhu as well as Onehunga. Ever other train running to Onehunga. It’s really good to ride between Ellerslie and Newmarket non stop you even get to pass some cars on the motorway. However the other option would be to make the Southern and Western lines express and make the cross town route all stops but you would force more people to transfer that way. I haven’t being nerdy enough to study the timetables so I am not sure how much benifit running limited stop services will give. Probably it would be good until it wasn’t when it gets stuck behind an all stopping train. For example I had a speedy run non stop on Te Huia between Papakura and Puhinui. My next trip was painful slow running.
Public transport is a lot of crosstown frequent services.
You’re talking about trains, not the same thing!
A possible indicator of post-CRL operating patterns could be in one of the ALR appendices – on page 64 (https://www.lightrail.co.nz/media/o21fslf0/appendix-005-long-list-options-redacted.pdf).
Disregarding the edits to show an Avondale-Airport heavy rail line, the map seems to indicate (and I’ve simplified the network):
– Southern Line, 4TPH all day and 8TPH at peak
– Western + Eastern Line, 4TPH all day and 8TPH at peak
– Pukekohe Express, 2TPH
– Crosstown Line, 2TPH Henderson-Newmarket and 2TPH Henderson-Newmarket-Otahuhu
So terminating the Onehunga line at Newmarket now would seem like a preparation for the eventual post-CRL rail operating patterns. It also appears that transferring to city-bound services would be quite convenient, since there will be trains every 7.5 minutes off-peak between Newmarket and Penrose on the Southern Line (where it doubles up on itself).
I do wonder why half of the Crosstown services terminate at Newmarket though, instead of carrying on to, say, Otahuhu.
Transfers ate Penrose are the pits because of the bridge. Better to change at Ellerslie or Newmarket
Ideally transfers at Ellerslie would also be for the Panmure-Botany and (eventually) Airport busway. But I understand there are space constraints…
Eastern busway extension to Ellerslie would be awesome. Would have to fire up the bulldozers though.
Or just take a traffic lane – sure not a busway – but bus lanes the whole way would make a huge difference.
You are a bit optimistic about light rail. It would still be more sensible to extend the Onehunga line to the airport and on to Wiri. With third (sooner) and fourth (later) mains there would be no dimishing capacity on the southern route. This line would be much cheaper than the current LR plan and would allow money left over for a surface light rail along Dom Rd where it should be going. That would be saving emissions quicker, not creating them with the LR tunnel idea. LR just threatens the future of the Onehunga line and as true rapid service from Mangere and Onehunga.
That’s not correct. To extend the Onehunga Line to the Airport would require the double tracking and grade separation of the existing line (at least $600 million), and more substantial works between Onehunga and the Airport (including very high viaducts over SH20/SH20A, and a >1km tunnel to reach the Airport. Onehunga-Airport HR was costed at $4 billion in 2020.
A surface light rail line from the city centre via Dominion Rd to the Airport, at internationally typical construction costs (NZ$50-100million per km, $1.25-$2.5 billion total) should be the cheapest option.
Or an automated light metro under Manukau Rd at internationally typical construction costs (NZ $200 million per km, $4-5 billion total). This line would also have the added benefit of better linking into North Shore and Northwestern lines, with higher frequencies than possible with heavy rail, and if built at international costs still leaving plenty of money for Crosstown and Isthmus light rail lines.
If you are concerned about rapid transit service to Mangere & Onehunga, a light metro option would be superior to the current Onehunga Line. Aotea-Onehunga would be 15 minutes by Manukau Rd light metro.
Yes, the tunneled light rail plan is heavily flawed, but it is not representative of light rail or light metro as a mode. It is very well possible, as proven overseas, to build both surface LR and underground LM for much cheaper than the ALR’s costings.
Surely $4-6B spent to double track Onehunga to Penrose and build HR out to the airport is a better option than the proposed light rail (costed in total at $14.6B https://www.lightrail.co.nz/light-rail/faqs/) – that tiki-tours through Mt Roskill across 18 stops? For a rapid transit airport option this makes no sense.
Depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
Firstly, the line can be double tracked from Penrose to Onehunga for about $30 million (or less) leaving grade separation out of it, and completing that over time incrementally. Well controlled level crossings and at least one road closure would suffice in the meantime. The idea that HR has to be elevated is a myth perpetuated by LR supporters and would not be required at all except, possibly, for around the Montgomery Rd pinchpoint. There is also waffle about going under Kirkebride Rd being too steep. Simple excavation here would bring the grade easily back to 1 in 50. I would favour an elevated rail at the airport terminus along Tom Pearce and Laurence Stevens Drives in a loop and that could be attached to the current road Puhinui Creek bridge (have seen a design for this) to avoid a second crossing opposed by the local Iwi. I have a costed elevated plan from an engineer costed at $100 million per kilometer. What you are proposing is tunnels which should be avoided due to the massive GHG’s they produce and the expence. The Onehunga link could unite much of Auckland by rail, especially with the proposed Avondale to Southdown line which, with a link at Onehunga, could connect the south with the west (and north) not just for passengers, but for freight as a by-pass through Auckland. Remember, a rapid rail system is already half way to the airport. Also remember that most Mangere employment hub workers come from south Auckland by car as do the workers from Mt Roskill and West Auckland. With HR, all of these people could transfer to rail
Exactly. The Onehunga Line should be extended to Mangere Bridge initially as the piers on the bridge have been built to allow for a rail line. This will open up access to the wider rail network for those in the area.
It says everything that the only way the Onehunga extension to the airport stacks up is because of the ridiculous LRT proposal.
Surface LRT along Dom Rd – the quickest route and cheapest LRT option – leaves the O’ Line for dead.
Cheaper option would be Manukau Road as a transit only corridor with surface LRT. Leaving GSR and Dominion Road as the alternative for general traffic.
Not going to comment on the Onehunga line extension to airport. Honestly the current LR plan is such a turd that might be a better option.
But extending HR from the airport to wiri is entirely pointless.
We already have electric BRT there which is already running at twice the frequently of any of our heavy rail lines can run, and that is going to be relatively cheaply extended up Te Irirangi Drive to Botany. HR from the airport to wiri would force all the airport district workers from east auckland to have to transfer onto HR which is very undesirable.
It would replace something we already have, for a heap of money and add zero coverage, and would never be more frequent than BRT. And what would be the upside? Nothing, the city center to airport route would already have a HR one seat ride through Onehunga. We are not space constrained in east Auckland so BRT can scale enormously.
I’m also going to inflame tensions by saying BRT is clearly the most popular mode in Auckland. The northern busway has the worst infra of any Auckland rapid transit line. until recently it was only like 6km of actual dedicated infra. And yet it’s the most popular line.
BRT is most popular as it’s fast and reliable, both of which rail in Auckland is yet to reach. With LR having it automated for reliability is kinda critical.
We should be moving on Airport to Botany BRT now. Every other proposed line is going to take an age to agree on, consult, designate, and build.
I’ve been trying to compile a list of auckland based transport projects that could be actioned easily by a potential incoming national govt and make a GA post to hopefully, potentially put some ideas in some brains. Nothing too far into new territory, just doing what’s worked before, and no treading too much on the toes of cars.
The A2B one ticks a lot of boxes. BRT which is perceived to be more practical than LR, especially after the labour bungling. Mostly has a designation already so less need for unpopular property demolishing. Keeps the road builders happy. Honestly it’s a great project so would make a lot of transport people happy.
They push heavy rail, it appeals to that mindset, big fast trains etc. Was thinking a good strategic HR project would be more extensive 4th main for express services from the far south. Maybe another electrification extension to Pokeno would be doable.
Bus shoulder lanes up to silverdale? Hopefully actual busway to redvale.
Aaaaand that’s all I’ve got.
Jack – trains to Huapai, Waiuku and Pokeno would be another. I’m not a fan of the former for a number of reasons but given the glacial progress with rapid transit to the Northwest it might be worth it.
Speaking of which a proper busway to the Northwest, that was in National’s transport policy at the last election.
The only thing National will do is restart Mill Road and the East West link, there won’t be any money left over for anything else.
I agree that a LR or BRT from Panmure to the airport via Botany, Manukau, etc would work. Perhaps shared right of way with with some sort of separation with HR to the airport.
See above comments to justify HR connection to Wiri. Agree third and fourth mains will be needed. Can’t agree that BRT or LR needs to come to the airport, but LR on the Auckland isthmus should be developed incrementally and extensively.
Do we know if the third main projects will include new platforms at Puhinui, Papatoetoe and Middlemore or will it just be an extra line for freight. I see a passing loop is being built on the Eastern side of Puhinui but no signs of a platform or whether the existing line on the western side will connect to allow passage to the North.
Royce – my understanding is that they will include platforms with all three tracks electrified and with bi-directional signalling. Crazy how little information there is on the project though.
Yes jezza. I thought AT and WK were opaque. They look like saints compared to Kiwirail.
“trains to …………Pokeno”
I think this should be Te Huia’s role (Pokeno is in the Waikato, after all), but probably requires a few more services in each direction, daily
Why don’t AT start the Purple line service from Henderson to Onehunga so the Commuters will get use to it ? .
1. It requires more trains and therefore more cost and staff to operate.
2. There’s no capacity on Western Line while it’s down to a single track between Grafton and Kingsland
3. Henderson doesn’t have the capacity for trains to ‘recover’ at the end of runs without potentially blocking existing western line services.
Couldn’t they reopen the old Station on Railside Ave ? and use that as a turn around platform .
The old platform is basically directly opposite the current platform. Reopening it would still potentially block citybound services because they would use the same track.
AT “only disrupting 60% of passengers” FFS – that is terrible and anyone who is pro public transport should be livid at that.
Whether I get livid would depend on the consequences of AT continuing to run Onehunga trains to Britomart. Given Britomart is down a platform those consequences would likely impact a lot more than 60 % of the relatively small number that use the Onehunga line.
Yes as it is the only way I can get to dressmart
Why can’t Penrose be remodeled with walkways etc to make the Onehunga a decent shuttle line like happens in Cardiff: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butetown_branch_line
The London Overground has amalgamated a number of different lines and has been acessways to makelines easy to access from each other such as Willesden Junction that now or soon will tie into CrossRsil as well : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willesden_Junction_station
Sorry about the typos, done on a phone late at night with predictive text inserting incorrect words.
Looking forward to the post CRL running pattern coming out. Going to miss the option of the express Onehunga line all the way to Britomart, use it from time to time.
So to provide a train every 30min each way between Onehunga and Britormart would require two trains. I assume that’s right so could we have two trains providing 3 trains per hour between Onehunga and Newmarket. Because its shorter and trains won’t be able to layover in Newmarket for more than a couple of minutes because they will be blocking the path of other services. They need to cross on the double track section so I can’t even see how it would work only running 2 trains an hour.
Don’t se have 4 platforms at Newmarket? In anycase I guess they will layover at the Strand area?
Four passenger platforms, but only three tracks. Middle track is accessed from both platform 2 and 3.
In response to Nialls post, the Avondale southdown line should be built first. Its the most ignored and underrated possible line. It’s already designated. The motorway has been built with spans wide enough for it already and kiwirail already owns the land.
It also has the best possible running pattern if the eastern line runs straight into the southdown to avondale line and back up the western to the city to create and isthmus circle line. It stops that unnecessary doubling up of services between Westfield and wifi. We should just have a proper HR transfer station at southdown/Penrose area between the southern and the isthmus circle line and one at avondale. More separation of lines into a proper metro.
On Monday 27 June I tried the new Onehunga train line service after work. Caught the 4.22pm Southern train to Newmarket. Waited for nearly 25 minutes for the 4.57pm Newmarket to Onehunga train. Never using this service again.
So on Tuesday after work I decided to catch the 4.57pm 30 Bus from the Civic on Queen Street to Onehunga. Took me nearly a hour to get home.
Need another choice & option to solve my public transport problem?
Will catch a Southern train from Britomart to Penrose station & catch the 66 Bus & get off near Victoria Street,Onenunga. Then walk home to Grey Street Onehunga. Heard it is my best option.
AT certainly make using Public Transport in Auckland a extremely difficult affair. Don’t their Top people use public transport???
So the main problem is the twice hourly schedule of the Onehunga service – hence the 25min wait time.
Yes the main problem of the new Onehunga line change is the twice hourly schedule of trains leaving Newmarket to Onehunga. You have to exactly time your Southern & Western trains leaving Britiomart to Newmarket & catching the Onehunga train to avoid long wait times.
There is no problem of catching the trains from Onehunga to Britomart as there are regular trains leaving Newmarket every few minutes to Britomart for a quick transfer.
Yesterday after work I got on a Southern train from Britomart to Penrose station & caught the 66 Bus & got off near Victoria Street via Mt Smart Road & walked 5 to 10 minutes to my home in Grey Street, Onehunga. Yes my best option of the three choices I tried.
What an awful decision. I don’t mind it too much going into the city, but training home is a nightmare as its impossible to time the connection in Newmarket without waiting half an hour for the Onehunga line. I now get off in Penrose and bus home but the busses are cancelled half the time. Ready to just give up.