Editorial: Rail link to airport the way to go

Auckland, by and large, is not a city suited to railways. The expanse it covers and the diversity of citizens' daily travel mean that no fixed line is likely to attract more than a small proportion of commuters in its vicinity.

But there could be one exception. A rail link from downtown Auckland to the airport at Mangere could find a sufficient concentration of demand to be well worthwhile. For the cost of laying a track the relatively short distance between the airport and the existing southern line, air travellers would have a train to the plane.

It is a surprise, therefore, that the airport company should express so little interest in a rail connection when it met the Auckland Regional Council's transport policy committee last week. The company's engineering general manager, Steve Reindler, regarded rail to the airport as merely an option for the future. "Our studies show that the viability of rail is, at the moment, some time off," he said. The company was much more interested in improving bus services, which at present run to the airport from only a few places besides the city centre.

The preference for buses is all the more surprising because the company seems to be well aware of the road congestion that frequently frustrates people trying to catch a plane. Mr Reindler noted that it can take passengers as long to make the journey from central Auckland to Mangere as it takes to fly to Wellington. He might have put it more strongly. The road route from the city to the airport is a ridiculous disgrace. It starts and ends on good motorways but through the isthmus it drops into busy suburban streets. Many is the tale of taxi drivers who have to assure a new arrival he or she is not being waylaid in Onehunga.

Bus services might be worthwhile if a road connection was built along the short distance between the Southern Motorway at Penrose and the Mangere bridge, making the city-airport route motorway all the way. But for reasons known only to transport planners, no such connection appears on any construction programme. It is mentioned even less than the possibility of a rail spur to the airport.

It is not only tourists and other travellers from the inner city who face a tortuous journey to the airport by road. North Shore residents face the same route. The airport company well knows that the difficulties of driving the length of Auckland have given strong impetus to the call for a commercial airport at Whenuapai. If Auckland International Airport Ltd has seen off the Whenuapai threat, it is only for the moment.

Faced with the proposal, the present Government decided that the Defence Ministry needed the airfield after all. But eventually the Government will give way to one that is less attached to public service monopolies and the case for a second airport could be revived.

The Auckland Airport company knows that to defeat that prospect once and for all it must improve access to its terminals from all parts of the region. A dedicated train service would seem ideal. For passengers from the North Shore, West Auckland and much of the isthmus, it would be considerably more reasonable and appealing to take a taxi or bus to Britomart than to face the tortuous road journey to Mangere. The airport company spends heavily on its terminals and runways. It is surely within its means, and certainly in its interest, to invest in passenger access too.