KEY POINTS:
Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons says Aucklanders deserve better than the 78 minutes it took her to reach the airport from Onehunga yesterday, by bus and on foot.
Ms Fitzsimons and a small band of followers equipped with sensible walking shoes and a GPS navigation aid set off walking at 8.50am, on what they billed as an intrepid journey, from the end of new railway tracks which are due to carry passenger trains to and from Onehunga by late next year.
They arrived at the airport at 10.08am, after catching two buses which meandered from the Onehunga Transport Centre via a maze of Mangere's back streets.
The group covered just over 16km in that time, including the initial 400m on foot, compared with a return trip of 11km from the airport back to Onehunga in a taxi van in just 12 minutes.
About 10 minutes could have been shaved off the outbound trip by back-tracking on a local bus to Three Kings, and then waving down the Airbus Express service which runs four times an hour between central Auckland and the airport.
But that would have cost each group member $18.20 - including the Airbus fare of $15 - compared with the $3.20 paid in total for the two bus legs of the longer trip.
Ms Fitzsimons said people living in Onehunga, within theoretical striking distance of the airport, should not have to "go backwards towards the city" and pay such a high fare.
The point of the exercise was to illustrate "how difficult it is to do some fairly standard trips around Auckland by public transport".
Although Ontrack and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority are committed to reopening the Onehunga branch railway line to passenger trains by the end of next year, potential links to the airport being promoted by the Greens are only at an initial "future-proofing" stage.
The transport authority has a $2.2 billion blueprint for sweeping railway loops encompassing the airport via Onehunga and Wiri, and a Penrose-to-Avondale link which could be used both for passenger trains and a main freight line to Northland.
But although it has persuaded the Transport Agency to strengthen foundations for its duplicate motorway crossing of Manukau Harbour, to carry a single-track passenger line, the Greens want all new motorway work to be put on hold until Auckland's railway network is completed.
