A community campaign is gaining momentum in Auckland’s northwest, where locals are renewing their push to restore passenger train services to Kumeū-Huapai, a town that’s grown significantly in recent years but remains without a rail connection.
Currently, the Western Line stops at Swanson, and the only way for people to get into the city from places like Kumeū-Huapai and Waitakere is by car or bus.
Last weekend, locals held a meeting of around 100 people campaigning for trains to run from Huapai to Swanson, providing a shuttle link to the rest of Auckland’s rail network.
Christine Rose, a local resident who’s backing the campaign, says there’s a desperate need for a train service to begin.
“Kumeū-Huapai serves a vast residential area, and growth in the area has grown hundreds of per cent in recent years,” Rose said.
“We only have SH16, which is one lane in and one lane out, so there’s a real bottleneck and there can be congestion at any time of the day.
“We have no viable transport solution that is timely, affordable, and won’t impose huge costs on our community.”
The North Auckland rail line passes through Kumeū-Huapai, but since a trial ended in 2009, only goods trains have used it.
Since then, the area’s population has exploded. According to Stats NZ, the town’s population was 1455 in 2013. In 2023 it was 6948. Auckland Transport stated in 2020 that there would be 37,000 new homes north-west of Auckland by 2048.
Neil Robertson, chair of the Public Transport Users Association, says they’ve worked out that a train to Kumeū-Huapai would already reach a catchment area of 30,000.
He believes a train line would serve the community better than the planned Northwest Rapid Transit Busway.
“They’re looking at a rapid transit system along the North Western Motorway, but it’s going to take about 10 years to get as far as Westgate,” Robertson said.
“So we said (to Auckland Transport), well, that’s not right, there’s a perfectly good railway line there. The travel time would be quicker by rail than by road, because the road is so clogged.
“The other thing we found is that the little two-lane road that comes out of Kumeu carries 37,000 vehicles per day, that’s 1000 more vehicles than Transmission Gully, and 16,000 more than the Waikato Expressway.”
Robertson believes the line could be up and running for $9.1 million, and those behind the campaign are launching a petition which they plan to present to local MP Chris Penk.
Auckland councillor Kerrin Leoni attended last weekend’s meeting and says she’s backing the train line opening to the public if she wins the mayoral election in October.
“My real concern is the fact that we’ve been given information that’s not really clear about why we can’t have the train line going,” Leoni said.
“From what Neil has told me, they’ve been asking now for $10,000 to do some assessment to see how that can get going. And I think we should be prioritising that, because we’ve got such a huge growth of population out there, and it’s just getting ridiculous.
“It’s taking people two hours to get to work because there’s so much traffic, and there’s no other way of them to get into Auckland without having to drive.”
Leoni believes work to get the line open should have been done in parallel with building the City Rail Link. She also supports the proposed Avondale to Southdown line and a rail link to Auckland Airport.
Auckland Transport’s group manager of rail services, Mark Lambert, says a study by KiwiRail last year showed there are significant infrastructure costs required to get passenger trains to Kumeū-Huapai.
“At present, no funding has been identified for the infrastructure cost,” Lambert said.
“The operating cost relative to potential patronage was also identified as a challenge in previous studies.
“Recent improvements to public transport connections to Westgate have been made, which will see a new [bus] station open in 2026.
“In addition, AT is working with Waka Kotahi to develop plans for the North West Rapid Transit, which would run as far as Brigham Creek. This would allow passengers to experience more reliable journeys along SH16, similar to the Northern Busway.”
– Stuff
