Mayoralty frontrunners fend off jab at rail hopes

Transport Minister Steven Joyce. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Super City mayoral candidates are defending their rail expansion hopes against a suggestion by Transport Minister Steven Joyce that these are linked to "the lunar cycle".

Mr Joyce told an infrastructure conference a $1.5 billion central city tunnel was "the only serious major project worth considering in the foreseeable future for Auckland commuter rail - and even that's a big commitment".

"When I hear of lines to the airport and rail to the North Shore I shake my head and think these are the musings of people full of wonderful vision but who are less verbose about what it will cost them and who will pay," he said.

"The short answer is Aucklanders would be the ones that pay the most for the most grand visions.

"I think we owe it ourselves through all stages of the lunar cycle to keep firmly grounded on transport issues."

Both the Super City's main leadership contenders, Auckland City Mayor John Banks and Manukau Mayor Len Brown, hold a vision of trains running between Albany and the airport.

Mr Banks told the Campaign for Better Transport last month he "would like to live long enough to see us being able to check in at Albany with our bags and pick up our bags from the airport and on to London Heathrow".

Mr Brown envisages a central rail loop in about five years, then links to the airport in 10 years and across Waitemata Harbour in 15 years.

North Shore Mayor Andrew Williams, running a distant third in the Super City race, wants rail tunnels under the harbour by 2018 and road tunnels by 2020.

It is not the first time Mr Joyce has intervened in Auckland's leadership contest, having expressed concern last year at "an attempt to create a bidding war to see who can wish for these things quicker".

Mr Brown, who urged him then to leave Aucklanders to debate their transport needs, said of the latest broadside that it was "a bit rich for a minister to now criticise candidates for proposing visionary projects, when that is precisely what his Government requires of us".

He was referring to legislation requiring the new mayor to deliver a "vision" for Auckland.

"I'm not going to apologise for voicing what Aucklanders want to see happen in their region. Aucklanders want unclogged roads and a better public transport system - including a rail link to the airport."

Mr Banks, who said last year that he would not be elected to follow the minister, was more circumspect about the latest intervention.

Asked what he thought Mr Joyce's lunar reference meant, he said: "I don't indulge myself in the rhetoric of the bear pit.

"I set myself apart as a candidate by not making crazy promises that are not going to be funded in the short or medium term, but I don't have any criticism of any mayoral candidate that has a vision about completing Auckland's integrated public transport system."

Mr Banks agreed with the minister that the central rail loop would be a big commitment but called it "the most significant part of the train set yet to be built".

"The rail link from Albany to the airport is some way off but in the fullness of time it is a logical extension to Auckland's integrated transport structure."

Mr Williams believed the minister was saying "we're all a bit kooky".

But he said Mr Joyce appeared to have forgotten the Northern Busway was designed to be expanded into a rail link, and the former Transit New Zealand had reached a consensus with Auckland councils that the next Waitemata crossing should comprise two rail and two road tunnels.