$81 million rail line yet to catch on with commuters

Photo / Greg Bowker

Manukau commuters appeared to suffer a severe outbreak of Mondayitis yesterday - shunning their new $81 million railway line en masse.

Three Auckland Council members who turned up at Manukau's trenched railway station at 6am to check reports of poor patronage say they counted just 30 people catching trains over the next two hours.

Transport committee member George Wood, who was helped by southern councillors Dick Quax and Calum Penrose with the informal census, said that was the total of passengers on six "peak" services trains that left for Britomart.

Three trains an hour have been running from Manukau at peak periods since the station opened about six weeks ago, and one an hour at other times.

Passengers counted by the councillors varied from just two each for trains that left at 6.10am and at 6.38am, to a peak of nine at 6.55am.

But patronage declined after that until 8.18am, when 14 caught a train.

The councillors say about 20 passengers arrived at Manukau over the two hours of their survey, although they were concentrating mainly on departing commuters.

"People may say it's early days, but for the investment Auckland has made in this double-track line into Manukau, and the huge amount that's gone into this station, I would have hoped for better buy-in from the community," said Mr Wood, who is from North Shore.

Told of an Auckland Transport report that said 53,142 passengers used the Manukau line in its first fortnight, he said train staff had told him most people boarded at stations such as Papatoetoe and Glen Innes, which are on the southern and eastern lines.

He blamed a decision by the former Manukau City Council for the new line to stop short of the area's main shopping centre, the lack of a connection to southern population centres, and a lack of promotion. "It's out of the way - to get there at 6am in the darkness, people have to walk through pretty desolate areas," he said.

Auckland Transport has estimated annual patronage will rise to 600,000 a year after the Manukau Institute of Technology opens a satellite campus for 5000 students over the station next year, and a bus interchange is added.

Spokesman Mark Hannan said 700 daily passenger movements through Manukau was considered "a reasonable start" for the station, and 1.2 million passengers a year were expected to use the bus interchange.

But Mr Wood said of the council organisation's target: "It's got a long way to go yet."

Auckland Mayor Len Brown, who headed the former Manukau council in approving the rail project with KiwiRail, expected the new line would "over time become a huge asset for public transport in the south".

"At the moment, the new station is in the middle of a building site, but once the MIT campus is completed and more bus services terminate at the station, it's worth will absolutely be proved," he said.

He remained committed to adding a southern connection to the line, and as Manukau was the closest station to his home, "I intend to make it part of my regular rail commute".

But a spokesman for Mr Brown was unable to say later whether the mayor had caught a train from the station since driving one through a ribbon there at an opening ceremony last month.