{"id":236896,"date":"2025-06-17T18:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T08:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=236896"},"modified":"2025-06-17T18:57:30","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T08:57:30","slug":"calls-to-restore-passenger-train-service-to-aucklands-kumeu-huapai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=236896","title":{"rendered":"Calls to restore passenger train service to Auckland\u2019s Kume\u016b-Huapai"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A community campaign is gaining momentum in Auckland\u2019s northwest, where locals are renewing their push to restore passenger train services to Kume\u016b-Huapai, a town that\u2019s grown significantly in recent years but remains without a rail connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the Western Line stops at Swanson, and the only way for people to get into the city from places like Kume\u016b-Huapai and Waitakere is by car or bus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s rail network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christine Rose, a local resident who\u2019s backing the campaign, says there\u2019s a desperate need for a train service to begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKume\u016b-Huapai serves a vast residential area, and growth in the area has grown hundreds of per cent in recent years,\u201d Rose said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe only have SH16, which is one lane in and one lane out, so there\u2019s a real bottleneck and there can be congestion at any time of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have no viable transport solution that is timely, affordable, and won’t impose huge costs on our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Back in 2014, this group of campaigners were calling for a train service to their town. Since then, the population of Kume\u016b-Huapai has more than quadrupled.RANI TIMOTI \/ RANI TIMOTI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The North Auckland rail line passes through Kume\u016b-Huapai, but since a trial ended in 2009, only goods trains have used it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, the area\u2019s population has exploded. According to Stats NZ, the town\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neil Robertson, chair of the Public Transport Users Association, says they\u2019ve worked out that a train to Kume\u016b-Huapai would already reach a catchment area of 30,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He believes a train line would serve the community better than the planned Northwest Rapid Transit Busway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re looking at a rapid transit system along the North Western Motorway, but it\u2019s going to take about 10 years to get as far as Westgate,\u201d Robertson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo we said (to Auckland Transport), well, that\u2019s not right, there\u2019s a perfectly good railway line there. The travel time would be quicker by rail than by road, because the road is so clogged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe other thing we found is that the little two-lane road that comes out of Kumeu carries 37,000 vehicles per day, that\u2019s 1000 more vehicles than Transmission Gully, and 16,000 more than the Waikato Expressway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Auckland councillor Kerrin Leoni backs the reopening of a passenger train line to Kume\u016b-Huapai and also supports the proposed Avondale to Southdown line.LAWRENCE SMITH \/ STUFF<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Auckland councillor Kerrin Leoni attended last weekend\u2019s meeting and says she\u2019s backing the train line opening to the public if she wins the mayoral election in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy real concern is the fact that we\u2019ve been given information that\u2019s not really clear about why we can\u2019t have the train line going,\u201d Leoni said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom what Neil has told me, they\u2019ve 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\u2019ve got such a huge growth of population out there, and it\u2019s just getting ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s taking people two hours to get to work because there\u2019s so much traffic, and there\u2019s no other way of them to get into Auckland without having to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Auckland Transport\u2019s 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 Kume\u016b-Huapai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt present, no funding has been identified for the infrastructure cost,\u201d Lambert said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe operating cost relative to potential patronage was also identified as a challenge in previous studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecent improvements to public transport connections to Westgate have been made, which will see a new [bus] station open in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Stuff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christine Rose, a local resident who\u2019s backing the campaign, says there\u2019s a desperate need for a train service to begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":236899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[960,192,294,47],"tags":[17086,17087],"class_list":["post-236896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-auckland","category-kiwirail","category-new-zealand","category-rail-news","tag-kumeu-huapai","tag-waitakere"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236896"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":236900,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236896\/revisions\/236900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/236899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}