Rolling out a one-liner about building a second tunnel in Wellington is easy on the campaign trail, but getting spades in the ground once you're in power is a very different story.
Wellington's new mayor promised if he was elected he would call on the region's mayors and other key players like the Wellington Chamber of Commerce to join him in demanding LGWM be re-sequenced.
Andy Foster wants construction of a second Mt Victoria tunnel brought forward. He doesn't think the business case for mass rapid transit will even stack up.
But he's got a Labour-Green wall on his own council to deal with before he looks abroad to the region for support.
Even then, it's unlikely he'll find an ally over at the regional council with neither contenders for the council's chair outright supporting his tunnel-building mission.
The left tilt
Labour-ticket mayor Justin Lester may have been rolled in a shock result, but the party's still secured a grip around the table after running a candidate in every ward.
Rebecca Matthews, Teri O'Neill and Fleur Fitzsimons have all been elected.
Fitzsimons is a returning councillor and is sure to wield some influence around the table.
She's not in favour of a new LGWM deal and wants to keep mass rapid transit at the forefront of the project.
Matthews and O'Neill have both pointed to a need for viable public transport but are less confident about drawing a line in the sand over sequencing until the council has met.
Expect former deputy mayor Jill Day to be more vocal this term. She's understandably upset about the loss of Lester and supports the plan he negotiated 100 per cent.
Iona Pannett, Laurie Foon and Sarah Free have secured a spot around the table on the Greens ticket. Unsurprisingly, they've got little appetite for bringing forward a second tunnel.
Foster has got a friend in Diane Calvert, Simon Woolf, Nicola Young and Sean Rush, who are all on the second tunnel bandwagon.
Jenny Condie and Tamatha Paul are less clear and want more information before they make a call.
Malcolm Sparrow didn't return calls for comment.
Foster is confident he can get majority support from his councillors but he shouldn't underestimate the power of what was known as the "Labour block" mobilising in a backlash to hold Lester's version of LGWM steady.
The regional council's two horse race
After the city's cliffhanger mayoral result the next big question to turn to is who will lead Greater Wellington Regional Council?
Roger Blakeley and Daran Ponter are the two who've put their hands up for the job.
They're both returning councillors for the Wellington constituency.
Blakeley has found confidence for his bid in a younger, greener council being elected this time around.
Thomas Nash on the Greens ticket for example had a 2799-strong majority in the Wellington constituency.
Blakeley sees a result like that as a mandate for a focus on issues like climate change.
He wants mass rapid transit to be built first and then wait and see if the mode shift will be enough to rule out the need for building a second tunnel at all.
Ponter is relying on support from those who've seen both him and Blakeley in action at council and have come to the conclusion that he would be the stronger chair.
It's understood several returning councillors have directly approached Ponter asking him to have a crack at the top job.
Ponter wants a meeting between the city council, regional council and NZTA chair Brian Roche before running off to the Transport Minister.
He's open to a discussion about the resequencing of LGWM but wants detailed business cases for big ticket items done before making a final call.
It seems neither Ponter nor Blakeley have a decisive majority for their bids and the vote for chair will be narrow.
The secret letter
The letter Associate Transport Minister and Green MP Julie Anne Genter penned to the Transport Minister over LGWM has captured the attention of Wellingtonians.
It mobilised the $6.4b transport plan as an election issue.
It sparked a harder look at what went on behind the scenes of the project with mayoral candidates whipping out lines like "our city needs real leadership that's for Wellington and not just the Beehive".
The letter landed in the House for days on end in August, but with news the Chief Ombudsman was investigating Genter's refusal to release it, the saga has turned into quite the waiting game.
The Chief Ombudsman has confirmed he's formed a provisional opinion on the matter but has given Genter the opportunity to provide comment before expressing his opinion publicly.
Genter said she would be happy to provide comment on the Ombudsman's final opinion once it has been released.
On the subject of letters, National's transport spokesman Chris Bishop has taken it upon himself to OIA every letter Phil Twyford has received from Green Party MPs, since becoming Transport Minister.
There are eight all together and all have been released apart from the infamous LGWM one.
The default is to release information unless there's a reason not to.
In the case of LGWM, Genter and Twyford have refused to release the letter, citing the need to protect free and frank expression of opinions between ministers.
Genter said if the Chief Ombudsman recommended that she release the letter, then she would do so.
There is one thing that transcends all political lines in the case of LGWM and that's the anxious agitating over wanting to get the city actually moving.
Because Let's Get Wellington Waiting simply isn't going to wash.
