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Image: Supplied; additional design by Bianca Cross
Image: Supplied; additional design by Bianca Cross

SocietyFebruary 5, 2022

‘The worst of both worlds’: A closer look at Auckland’s light rail plan

Staff writer
Image: Supplied; additional design by Bianca Cross
Image: Supplied; additional design by Bianca Cross

Public transport advocate Matt Lowrie explains why he’s disappointed by the announcement of the long-awaited light rail connection between the city centre and the airport. 

The government last Friday pressed on with plans to future-proof Auckland’s public transport network, announcing a partially underground route from the CBD to the airport.

It’s the latest stage of a politically divisive and often halting process. But should the project proceed, tunnelled light rail from Wynyard Quarter to Mount Roskill will emerge to the surface by the early 2030s, running alongside State Highway 20, passing through Onehunga and Māngere before terminating at Auckland Airport. Stretching 24km, with up to 18 stations, and services running every five minutes, the option is the second-most expensive behind light metro, a rail-based mode that is grade-separated, meaning it runs either above motorways or in tunnels beneath densely populated areas. Tunnelled light rail has a likely price tag of around $15 billion once adjusted for inflation. There’s potential the cost could balloon to $24b.

“We have deliberately chosen this option for Auckland Light Rail that will integrate with other major infrastructure projects across Auckland, like the additional Waitematā Harbour crossing, the Auckland Rapid Transit Plan and Kāinga Ora Large Scale Projects,” said finance minister Grant Robertson last Friday. Transport minister Michael Wood added Auckland needed a “linked-up” public transport network that connected communities, made it easier for people to move through the city and reduced congestion.

The fact the government is willing to spend tens of billions of dollars on Auckland’s public transport is fantastic, wrote Matt Lowrie, the editor of the Auckland transport and urban design blog Greater Auckland, in a post titled “Sooo…Tunnelled Light Rail”. “So, it’s odd then to feel somewhat disappointed by it all.”

I spoke with Lowrie about his reaction to the announcement and why two good lines may be better than one great line.

You were disappointed by the decision because tunnelled light rail is the “worst of both worlds”, as you wrote in your blog post. What do you mean by that?

If you’re going to build something, you either go for the cheaper option and use the money you save to build a bunch of other things or you go for the more expensive option and do it properly. This is really the first of three lines meant to be built – the others extend to the North Shore and to the north-west. Previous modelling has indicated the North Shore is about twice the demand of these two other routes combined and the north-west will likely be busier as well. So you’ve got a situation where we’re putting all this effort into this first route but we’ve also got these other routes to build… we’re potentially causing issues further down the track because there’s a lot of decisions that will need to be made and the compromises that come with them.

A map of the tunnelled light rail route. (Photo: Supplied)

How likely is it that we end up in a never-ending cycle of proposals and inaction – or is it too risky for the government to not get shovels in the ground?

It’s risky both ways. The biggest current transport project by far that New Zealand has ever built is the City Rail Link and that’s costing less than $5b – and that’s still very expensive. So we’re talking about a project that’s at least three times the size, possibly more. This is something unprecedented for New Zealand to build. The risks are very high to deliver it. What gets urbanists and transport advocates nervous is that we’ve seen this exact thing happen recently with the harbour crossing for bikes and pedestrians where, all of a sudden, the bridge doubled in cost. It was still less than a lot of other transport projects, but the government came under pressure from the media and cancelled it. Also, the opportunity costs for other things the government wants to spend money on, it will undoubtedly come under pressure from the opposition and other political parties to can the project. Does the government have the fortitude to continue on and deliver it under a lot of opposition? So far, the evidence points to “no”.

Kingsland is set to become the best-connected suburb in Auckland and you raised the question of whether it needs so much extra capacity. Besides rugby games and concerts at Eden Park, why do you think the suburb needs another public transport route servicing it?

It doesn’t. The capacity of the City Rail Link will increase substantially. Currently, there’ll be a train every 10 minutes, which can hold about 750 people, so you can move a couple of thousand people an hour with the City Rail Link. And with other plans for the rail network, that could rise to a train holding about 1,200 people every five minutes. Plus there are buses on New North Rd and Sandringham Rd so there’s a huge amount of capacity there already – and a lot more coming. The reason why Kingsland is on the list is simply that’s how the government gets to Sandringham Rd and Sandringham Rd is where it wants to be for the Kāinga Ora development.

It’s really a location of convenience then.

Yeah, in some ways. The wider issue for me is that all the solutions are expensive but this is a very expensive solution for what it is. So what else can we spend that money on? We have problems with our transport planning processes, which don’t allow for much out-of-the-box thinking. We’re rigid in what solutions we look at – all of them are routes running from the city centre to the airport. What we don’t look at are the alternatives.

For example, one of the things we’ve proposed is surface light rail on Dominion Rd. And because you’ve got parts of the route planned along State Highway 20, it’s not that much more to extend a separate route to the western line and connect up the network, which makes it easier for people going from west to Onehunga or to the airport. Instead of having one line that zig-zags all over the city, you have a couple of different lines, which serve a wider range of people and corridors… By comparison, for the cost per kilometre of surface rail and the difference in building a tunnelled option, we could build another 15km of surface light rail somewhere else. Do we build Dominion Rd or Sandringham Rd? Well, we could build both – and it’ll still be cheaper to build and run than what’s proposed.

Building two good lines is better than one great line.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity

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A woman sitting on a giant tampon, duh (Image: Tina Tiller)
A woman sitting on a giant tampon, duh (Image: Tina Tiller)

SocietyFebruary 5, 2022

One woman’s desperate search for a free tampon

Staff writer
A woman sitting on a giant tampon, duh (Image: Tina Tiller)
A woman sitting on a giant tampon, duh (Image: Tina Tiller)

Fullers360 claims to be the first transport and tourism company to provide period products to staff and customers. How are they the first?

All menstruators know the feeling. The little cramp. The suspicious moisture. The regret that you wore your coolest, thin cotton pants. Shoulda known, but didn’t. A period’s arrival in public – at work, or in transit somewhere – often is followed by a desperate and unfruitful search under fluorescent lights. At best, one might find a coin-operated pad dispenser, and have a forgotten coin in the depths of their pocket. The most organised, well-trained Type-As may be equipped with “just in case” products in their bag. But for the rest of us, risky, ad-hoc arrangements must be put together and worried about for the rest of the day. 

Natasha Colville, crew development manager at Auckland-based ferry company Fullers360, knows the feeling. “There are days when you’re on the ferry for your shift without any access to a nearby pharmacy or supermarket; or you may be stationed at a DoC-protected island and there’s nowhere at all to get what you need.” But Fullers360 has this week partnered with Dignity NZ, a social enterprise aiming to deliver period equity. Using Dignity’s “buy-one, give-one” model, Fullers360 are providing free period products to its staff and passengers while supporting Dignity to give the equivalent number of products to people experiencing period poverty. Gone is the anxiety of an unexpected bloody arrival on the waves of the Hauraki Gulf for these crew. 

The Fullers ferry: now a safe haven for menstruators on the high seas (Photo: Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

In June 2021, the New Zealand government acknowledged the disadvantages for the 700,000 people living in period poverty and started an opt-in initiative for schools and kura to receive free period products for students, following the likes of Wales, Sri Lanka, Scotland and England. This saves students mid-emergency through bathroom sanitary product dispensers, and alleviates period poverty by providing bulk supplies. But bloody surprises and period poverty don’t only affect students. As a result of financial insecurity brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, Dignity has seen “a huge increase in demand for period products”, says general manager Anika Speedy. To date they have gifted more than 546,780 period products to those in need. 

Fullers360’s proud claim to be the “first transport and tourism operator to provide free period care to customers and employees” is clearly intending to stir reverence but instead stirs concern. Has no other transport or tourism agency given out a free tampon before?

Women had to wait almost 50 years longer than men for a public toilet in the Auckland CBD. The first men’s public toilet was built in 1863, while the men’s and women’s toilet at Grafton Bridge wasn’t built until 1910. Gender-diverse people waited longer still – until 1974 – for unisex public facilities. Now, in most cubicles, facilities lack products as essential as toilet paper or hand soap, let alone a lifesaving pad or tampon.

I call Fullers360’s competitor SeaLink, also zipping around the Hauraki Gulf, and am told there is no similar initiative being put in place there, though the staff member (who sounds like a menstruator) does think it’s “really cool”. I’m diverted to an email address but it is generic and, I assume, flooded with complaints about the lack of period products in the bathrooms. Under the “toilets” section on the facilities webpage, I am told only that they are located near the passenger lounge, and that a “J Hannah” considered the boat to be “clean”. Digging further, I find myself on a page dedicated to the flagship of SeaLink’s fleet, Seacat, also known as Big Red. Its listed onboard facilities include Sky TV, wifi, power outlets and a licensed bar. But no period products. Big Red has a passenger capacity of 400 and apparently none will have their period.

I then call AT Transport’s senior media specialist who is also listed as the contact for “facilities”, but she does not answer my call. I have paid so many parking fines that I feel miffed at the level of service. I email her for good measure, and 30 minutes later a chirpy email informs me the provision of period products is “something AT has been exploring with a supplier”. I’m not entirely sure how much there is to explore, and I consider sending her the succinct Family Planning page “period products”. I can’t help but notice her email signature includes another title, “strategic communications”, which feels slippery, evasive, and eager to appear to please.

Thinking bigger, beyond Tāmaki Makaurau and into the nation, I explore “The Great Journeys of New Zealand”, a train track Medusa owned by KiwiRail where the Interislander ferry joins the Northern Explorer, Coastal Pacific and TransAlpine scenic trains. These are vehicles, I think, where one is supposed to travel slowly, spend time, gaze out the window. The website invites me to “sit back and relax for the whole journey”. It is designed elegantly, which means it’s expensive. I read there are “plenty” of toilets, but seemingly even more cafes and bars. One phone line gives me a phone number for another line, where a faraway voice answers my one question with “we don’t have any plans for that” and follows up with another diversion to an email address. 

I am reluctant to congratulate or champion Fullers360 because it is 2022 and period products should be free and easily accessible in all cramped, badly lit cubicles. But they aren’t, which sucks because sometimes I would like to wear my coolest, thin cotton pants without fear.

Gabi Lardies is a cadet in the Next Page cadetship programme, public interest journalism funded through NZ On Air. She will be working with The Spinoff for four weeks before working with Metro, North & South, New Zealand Geographic and Pantograph Punch.

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