MAYOR BROWN’S SPEECH
CRL Opening Event
Friday, 11 September 2026
Te Waihorotiu Station
Welcome
I have very mixed feelings about today’s opening of CRL.
Firstly Relief, relief to see it open at last, and that I’ve lived long enough to see this happen.
Secondly, Pride. I have a sense of pride to be able to lead a modern city with an underground rail that is integrated with our Busways and public transport network.
I have some Sympathy for those businesses disrupted by street level construction, and I look forward to you receiving increased activity due to CRL opening.
Gratitude. To all those workers, concreters, tunnelers, rail layers, wirers, circuit fillers, testers, railway workers training for new roles, builders and all those - too many to mention who worked through COVID and various controversies.
I have Admiration for the tenacity of Len Brown to get this project past the government, who then took it off him and entered into contracts that I never would have signed.
Most of all Responsibility as this falls to my council and the PT version of AT, to make this fully used, pay its way and trigger a more intensified efficient city that complements our wonderful natural advantages of harbours and volcanos.
Many people have told me to be positive today and I am very positive about how CRL is a game changer for the city, but the fact remains that this took too long, and cost too much and that is disappointing.
I want to concentrate on the lessons to be learned from this project so we don’t continue to repeat these cost overruns on our other big transport projects, as evidenced by Transmission Gully, Puhoi to Warkworth, and the even more expensive Warkworth to Te Hana which might still be rescued.
CRL yet again proves my theory that projects don’t go wrong, they start wrong. A city underground rail solution was first proposed and first cancelled before I was born, then Dove Myer Robinson, who I never knew but who my father admired, had a go but couldn’t get his council over the line, which I admit can be a tricky task. Then Len Brown got there and thanks to him.
This is actually the third tunnel I have opened in Auckland.
#1 was the Vector tunnel from Penrose into the city back in the year 2000. That one should have been a large duct under the roads that the tunnel followed, but it does work.
#2 was the recently finished Central Sewage Interceptor from Point Erin to Mangere funded by ratepayers and completed on time and on budget.
This is #3 and it could be and should be the most important and valuable, but it is certainly the most expensive, and had the biggest cost overruns a lot of which were highlighted four years ago when I stood for council, and confirmed by people such as Sean Sweeney, the project director.
I have to admit to feelings of annoyance at what bits seem to me to be a waste of money; that’s something I don’t like.
I like to insist that a project firstly identifies the value of what it delivers then set limits to the project scope to meet that cost. I am proud of public transport being a cheap affordable option, with the $50 weekly cap that originated from my office so each interaction is around $5, not an expensive fashion purchase.
I know that many of you are impressed and even thrilled by these fancy stations sometimes referred to as cathedrals, but CRL is not a fashion shop, and this is where much of the money has gone.
Singapore and Moscow with perhaps the best systems are very modest at street level.
More important than the stations is the service itself, which will succeed by being comfortable, convenient and regular, delivered by our new public-transport focused AT.
And via Plan Change 120 and other planning devices we will increase patronage by having many more people living near these stations.
Maungawhau and Kingsland will be our most intensively developed areas, but that will take effort to execute, in the face of leafy suburb resistance, and government efforts to develop distant greenfields.
Council has learned lessons. Eke Panuku’s feeble efforts at Maungawhau mean they are no longer with us, and AT’s roading staff who made such a mess of roads there have been brought in house, to be retrained to produce better cheaper faster solutions.
I am a plain speaker and pick up carefully worded changes hiding something.
At the time of my arrival CRL number explanations changed from demand to capacity.
It will now be our responsibility to get demand up to the capacity of 19,000 per hour.
Similarly, the dreaded words of Future Proofing showed up. These are very convenient words to cover expensive bad decisions, and the building of 9 carriage platforms to cater for 6 carriage trains is one of these.
If Future Proofing was really important then rail crossings would have been in the budget, rather than yet another cost facing council.
I am disappointed at the cost of this project, and it does matter as the arrival of this very valuable project is accompanied with having to pay for it and that resulted in a rates increase of 7.9% solely to cover the costs of this new much needed service.
Council faced big hurdles to keep rate rises to this level with increased inflation and unanticipated rises in fuel prices. Yet all sorts of ill-informed critics howled at this rise, which would have been much less if the CRL costs had been better controlled.
It has even driven the Rates Cap slogan that will be an imposition on council’s ability to service the city.
That’s the bit I had to get off my chest folks, and I hope you all enjoy today’s opening including the appearance of our first town cryer. I hope you use and enjoy the trains and even enjoy a few sandwiches, which I rescued, from a much-belated effort to control costs.
I look forward to seeing how the CRL will transform our city over the next few years, and I will continue to push for progress that learns from the past and delivers outcomes better, faster, and cheaper.
It’s sure an exciting time to be Mayor, and a fantastic and exciting time to be an Aucklander.
I understand some of the ministers here are heading out to Paerata and Drury – I hope you are all going on the train!
Thanks all again for coming along today, I look forward to seeing you all on board from Sunday.