The near miss at Greens' rail crossing announcement (and other thoughts about the election)

The Greens’ train crossing policy announcement has Henry Oliver thinking about the consequences of the election in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.

Yesterday I left our Morningside office to walk two minutes to see the Green Party announce its new policy to upgrade and replace Auckland’s level train crossings. As I approached the tracks, I heard the warning bells, the lights started flashing, the barrier came down and the pedestrian gate I was approaching locked shut. A train was coming. Across the street, a woman quickly walked onto the road to get around the gate and cross the tracks. She moved in a way that suggested she did this a lot, like a well-practised jaywalker at a crossing they’re familiar with. She caught her train.

Five minutes later I was at the stand-up, the four or five journalists outnumbered by Green MPs and operatives. And right as Chlöe Swarbrick was talking about this very thing, the bells went off again and the barriers came down. Except, instead of a grey-haired woman zipping across, a white car crossed to the other side of the street to get around the barrier and as the train approached with a blaring horn. It was a narrow miss, and could have been a tragic accident. “That is case in point of why we need to remove these level crossings – it’s like you set that up,” Swarbrick said, astonished. “That’s incredibly, incredibly dangerous and was one of those very near misses.”

The policy

The Greens were at Morningside to announce a plan to remove level crossings on Auckland’s Western Line, the Herald’s Katie Bradford reported. The work is costed at $2.5bn–$3.5bn and is currently unfunded, though Auckland Council is consulting on options.

The party says removing the crossings would let Auckland Transport run more than 12 trains an hour on the Western Line, which it currently cannot. During peak traffic, barriers are down about 30% of the time, delaying motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.

The Greens say they aren’t deciding what suits each crossing, but will work with the council on what’s best for each community. It sits within a wider AT programme covering 21 West Auckland crossings, from Kingsland to Mt Albert and eventually out to Henderson and Swanson. An investment case will be prepared over the next two years for the Government and council, who would fund it 50/50. AT’s Tom Willetts says inner west lines will rise from 12 to 24 trains per hour sometime between 2031 and 2041. “If these crossings are not replaced, they will become a constraint on rail services or result in more frequent barrier arm closures, longer delays and increased safety risks.”

The problem

Baldwin Ave, one stop down from Morningside, is where the danger became a tragedy. Early last month, a Mount Albert Grammar student was fatally hit by a train there. Two weeks later, AT met residents to discuss changes to six crossings from Kingsland to Mt Albert.

Between 2013 and 2023, almost 70 crashes, more than 250 pedestrian near-misses and 100 vehicle near-misses occurred at level crossings across Auckland city. Morningside has one of the highest incident rates on the network: 53 crashes and near-misses in a decade.

Willetts told RNZ’s Morning Report that safety improvements have already been made at all Auckland crossings, including gates at every pedestrian crossing. “The next stage, as we look to increase train frequencies in future years, is to look to remove or replace level crossings further because that really does mitigate the risk.”

Options include raising roads, lowering the rail line, bridges, underpasses, and in some cases removing homes. Partial or full closure is being considered for some stations.

The real-world consequences

As it gets closer to the election (T-minus 32 days), it gets easier and easier to see every policy announcement as a strategic move in the game of politics: Who’s up, who’s down? Who’s this designed to appeal to? Whose votes are still winnable? Will the costings hold up? How was the energy? The enthusiasm?

But standing at Morningside, watching a car cut through a barrier as a train approached at speed with its horn on full, that abstraction disappeared. It was a stark reminder that all of these announcements and policies could have real world implications. Most won’t, of course. Most will fall by the wayside, either by the election result, the following coalition negotiations, the future budget or just the busy business of governing. But some of the things politicians are saying at staged events with their colleagues performatively nodding behind them, could actually impact your life and the life of the country, whether you like them or not and whether you vote for them or not.

The Greens didn’t have to manufacture a moment to illustrate their argument. It arrived, unprompted, mid-sentence. That doesn’t settle whether their policy is right or how it should be paid for. But it makes clear that in the aftermath of all the ads and announcements and emails and debates, there will be real world consequences. So you may as well at least try and have a tiny say in what those may be.