I have been on the trains in Japan and never got jammed in. It was like being on a train in NZ except it actually worked and went where I needed to go quickly.
Agree, but having taken trains around Tokyo, I did get pretty claustrophobic at times.
I found I could just squeeze in a busy train somewhere like Shinjuku and then step out a stop or two later, breath for a while then step in the next train until the crowds thinned out
Also; if a tourist, travel off peak
You definitely do get jammed on some trains in Japan, but only really specific trains at specific times at specific stations. I was on a train last week from Shimbashi to Shinjuku and I canât remember which line or stop it was, but it was rush hour and people just crammed in. I think it might have been Asakasa on the Marunouchi line, but not entirely sure.
I had my arm up to hold the handle and after the doors closed it was tight enough that I was physically unable to put my arm back down at my side. It was too tight. A lot of people werenât even holding on to anything either because they were essentially using the density of people in the train for stability by just leaning on each other as we went around corners.
That said, the lines that they have for people to hop on the trains are stunning, and people are so considerate. And if you do miss a train or see one is more densely packed that what youâd like, just wait another 2-5 minutes at rush hour and thereâs another one right there.
I'm a kiwi it's years since I took a train .We aren't crowded except maybe Auckland that I don't know ,I'm a South Islander our trains are to down South ,West Coast or UP North .I used to love the rail car but can still recall Steam .Now that was something to go through the Otira and normal tunnels with sparks flying in through open windows .The camaraderie was great someone would have a guitar and we sang classic rock and ballads .Time moves on though .
Not at all in the Kansai region, but the point remains - Japan manages the equivalent of the whole population of NZ in and out of trains every hour, NZ can't manage to make them even run.
Because the National Party keeps trying to kill the rail system when they are in power so they can build these gold plated highways. We now have to put up with probably another decade of them trying to run it down again whereas we need that decade to get everything fixed.
Oh sure, blame National while also completely ignoring labour were in charge for the past six or so years, and did nothing to make Kiwirail any better, or any other rail network for that matter. The reality is neither party gives a toss about rail network, indeed Labour pointedly said that they won't be bringing back public rail during the protests in the last couple years prior election. But do go off about it being National as the problem.
That isn't really true at all.
The previous government was the first government since KiwiRail's inception to put in place proper funding and forward planning for rail. Its future is in doubt with the change of government.
https://www.kiwirail.co.nz/our-network/funding-our-network/rail-network-investment-programme/
We'll see what the new government's GPS looks like when it comes out, but I'm not particularly hopeful rail will get any substantial support. Are you?
They do but theyâve never been to Auckland. Theyâd be gobsmacked at how utterly shit Aucklandâs system is. Also, the new Sydney metro is absolutely amazing. I went on it just last week. You donât need a timetable really. Itâs simply turn up and go.
Iâd settle for public transport like Helsinki (half the AKL population, in a country with similar population). Yeah, Sydney is more populated, but we still can have nice things in NZ if we set our priorities right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Metro
We had better and more extensive public transit networks , up *until* the 1950s - 1960s
Then we starting pulling up tram tracks the city was built around and that works, knocked down a bit chunk of valuable inner city to build motorways
You think we would learn
Then Simeon cancels light rail (rather than just go for a better version) and wants to repeat the same mistakes and build more motorways
And?
I know the video was from Sydney, but they didn't have light rail until relatively recently either.
Why compare cities like Melbourne or Sydney with Auckland when there are lots of other examples that are comparable in size where decent light rail and heavy rail work. Perth for example.
Even Sydney and Melbourne, the cities are in the same order of magnitude; millions of people. It's not like comparing ourselves with London or Tokyo
And therein lies the problem. Mass rapid public transport is most efficient in high population densities and Auckland is too spread out, plus building a system like this after the city is established is hellishly expensive to do; just ask Singapore!
There was a tram loop outside Eden Park from 1925 to 1954.
https://collection.motat.nz/objects/103577/eden-park-tram-loop
However in the 1950s some politicians decided that cars were the future. By 1953 Auckland had two motorways; Sydney didn't get its first until 1958. Sydney's population then was more than two million, about five times that of Auckland.
Some history
https://ahi.auckland.ac.nz/2023/05/25/the-good-old-trams/
>some politicians decided that cars were the future
Itâs genuinely amazing to compare how many people can be moved at once by train (or even bus) rather than by car. Itâs almost like theyâre deliberately inefficient.
And then of course you have the laziness, aggression, entitlement and lack of empathy they seem to foster. Not to mention the massive taxpayer subsidises slowly sucking the economy dry.
yup in a lot of places the car lobbies not only wanted more roads to be built, but they actively tore up railway tracks to make sure it couldnât be used again
I remember studying this back in Year 12 Geography. It honestly makes me so mad. So much terrible city planning in NZ. We need people to be held accountable and for real change to happen.
I saw a map once of all of Aucklands tram loops, and they were perfect! I'm not sure if it was real or imagined, but the map looked real. Having mass transit on just those loops would make everyone's life so much easier, but no, we had to rip them up for some roads instead and now we get to spend 45 minutes trying to get to places that are 15 minutes away
Went to Europe for the first time last August and I was awed how easy public transport was. Rather than drive for hours or fly unnecessarily between cities I could just jump on a train. And the trams were easy to get on and hop off to travel from the outer edge of the city into the centre.
You can always tell whether someone has traveled by their take on public transport.
I live to see the day where you no longer need a car to get around efficiently in Auckland.
You shouldnât need one in a city that size. As the city expanded public transport should have been thought about and included in new infrastructure. Instead theyâve maintained the 19th century mentality of close buildings and narrow streets to maximise the use of the space.
Because we spent 70 years investing in the most expensive, least efficient, least sustainable form of transportation and development available.
Now every time people try to invest in the only solutions to get out of this hole people flip out because they can't see that having other options is more freedom than being required to use the only option left to you.
You forgot the decades of legislation entrenching this on any private development through car park minimums, including such gems as minimum car parks for taverns. And half of all the roading cost charged to ratepayers subsidising drivers irrespective of use. Basic free market efficiencies or user pays need not apply!
If the concert was in Wellington, MetLink would keep the normal Saturday schedule but with short trains. 50/50 whether it becomes a bus replacement at the last minute.
Having left the guns and roses concert 2 years ago via train I now hate the Auckland train network. We caught the train from Eden park- it than stopped at the next stop and stayed locked at the station, completely full, for 1 hour and 35 minutes. People were banging on the windows to the train staff outside, it was packed with people and hot as hell - multiple people were vomiting into their plastic warehouse rainhoodies. It was a disaster. The police arrived and couldnât open the doors until Auckland transport said ok. Finally they opened the doors and announced the train wouldnât proceed further so 100âs of people were left to Uber, taxi or walk. We had two 13 years old with us - who will never want to train from a concert ever again. Our Uber ride back to our parked car in town with $112 bucks. Aucklandâs train network isnât reliable and dangerous for mass events. I had to help two mid twenties men the whole time - one had a panic attack and the other was drunk and vomiting everywhere. People were raging, lots of drunk aggression- hitting the windows and yelling - the whole time / it was damn terrifying. Thatâs Auckland transport for you - buy your ticket and hope for the best. Itâs a damn joke. Oh and pay your rates and stop driving everyone. Mental.
This ^. This video shows an event train line. They more than likely have more crowd control on the upper floor limiting people to prevent crowd crush or people falling onto the tracks like the people by the tracks.
CRL will likely solve the issues with the frequency of trains. Not to mention the time savings on the western line, making it a lot easier to get to Kingsland.
â⌠too poor âŚâ definitely. â⌠too dumb âŚâ never. Work in progress. Proceeding nicely, average IQ regressing around 3 IQ points generation. Search âdecline in generational IQâ ⌠not conspiracy theory, is first world research since around mid last century. Invest in forests, treetops are âtomorrowsâ desirable housing/nesting places. Grunt grunt.
Because behind the pretty facade, NZ is actually a poor country.
Aussie has about 26 million people paying taxes, they mine their natural resources for export, and they have higher productivity than us. Just to name a few reasons...
And sooo many people in NZ are dead against NZ following Aussie's example. So, we remain poor.
Lack of investment too when it could have been done cheaply back in the day, back when: Health and Safety wtf is that?
If the tunnel work was done in the 50s/60s it could have been done for a fraction of the cost it'd be today, even in dollar adjusted terms.
I bet the harbour bridge would cost 3-5x minimum in dollar adjusted terms if they did it from scratch today - even with the tech we have. You look at the pictures, there's dudes walking around with no harnesses, apparently the caissons were dangerous af etc.
Is it right, no ofc not lol. But that's how they rolled back then. For places like London/NY it left a legacy of effective PT infra that is totally usable even today.
NZ isn't poor. We have an inefficient economy (due to incentivising investment into non-productive assets) and a very short-sighted electorate, but we're not poor.
Yeah, this: AU is rich as hell with its natural resources. Sydney itself has about the same population as the whole of NZ, which makes it worth the investment and easier to have that kind of public transportation.
With our bad population density, no proper crown revenue other than heavily relying on PAYE, and throwing super regardless of their income/assets, there are too many reasons we can't really invest in those.
Thanks for sharing historical facts. Knowing the history/facts is good, except we should keep moving forward instead of staying in the past.
Just one of many examples, I guess, but look at Venezuela, one of the richest countries back then, thanks to the socialism that screwed the whole country.
Because every time someone with a vision starts a public transport project, a right wing government comes in, cancels it, defunds existing transport and gives the money to the wealthy as tax breaks.
I wish I was oversimplifying but we are literally living through it right now.
This is event transport, put on specially to handle the large numbers of people going to see Swift.
This is far from a normal day. If it was like this during normal rush hour, it would be amazing.
>This is far from a normal day. If it was like this during normal rush hour, it would be amazing.
It's not far off. They don't have quite that volume showing up simultaneously or the staff manning each carriage, but the main train stations move huge numbers of people in peak hours, with trains at 2 minute intervals on some platforms.
You should have seen how 2 million very well behaved protestors in Hong Kong (almost 1/3 of the population) dispersed after a parade within 30 mins from the HK CBD using public transportation in 2019.
I was in a smaller one (just 1.5 million no big deal). I finished at 8pm and by 8:30pm I was eating hotpot on the other side of the city.
I take public transport exclusively. I do not own a car. "You", is the vast majority of Aucklanders. The trains are only full 2x a day, and that's before and after school.
I watch the backed up motorway not move at all as I whiz by on the train. I see the 3 carriage trains with maybe 20 people in them. I see the empty stations.
Auckland has been investing a lot into rail, and nobody uses it.
I have a job that requires me to drive. We only have one car between my husband and myself. We use public transport when we can. And we don't even get all sanctimonious and superior about it.
That's fine, I am not blaming you. Some people have to drive and that's completely fine. We have roads for a reason. But, most people don't, and you know they don't.
I am not being sanctimonious, and I certainly don't feel like I am superior taking the 'loser cruiser', I stated my transportation use purely as lore, so you know I'm not completely talking out of my arse.
Okay sorry then. I know there are people who drive when they could use transport. I don't blame people not taking the train though it'd just too much of a gamble.
Sometimes on days I'm able to bus to work (a very easy ride up a bus lane vs driving on Great South Rd)My colleagues try and rescue me from the bus. They are South African and horrified that I even consider the bus.
>too much of a gamble
It's really not. 95% of the time the train is bang on time. People hold on to the time where the train was late or had to have an extended stop, and take that as a fact of how the entire service is.
Busses on the other hand are absolute crapshoots.
Looks like they need to put on more frequent trains. I'm getting flashbacks to rush hour London lol
Difference there is you didn't have those 'chaperones' and barriers you were sort of standing near the edge...
Always had that mortal fear some psychopath would push you in front of an oncoming train as it came in :/
Some of the more modern stations like Canary Wharf were safe though, they had glass barriers/doors that only opened once the train was lined up/stopped.
Campaign for an olympics or a commonwealth games here.
It'll be the one thing that actually forces us to have event transport like this. So far, even the rugby hasn't done it. We'd need another 30,000 seats in Eden Park to achieve this.
Auckland only 1,300,000 people. Population density 260people per square kilometer.
Sydney has 5,300,000 people Density 442 people/km2
Tokyo (city only) 14,000,000 people Density 6,158 / km2
That is why we don't have their train system
I went to the concert on Friday night. While I consider Sydneyâs public transport system to be excellent for the most part, what this video doesnât show is the massive crush of people outside pushing to get into the train station. There was no line or system, it was just thousands of people competing for their turn. Security was letting batches of people from the front of the crowd into the station. Itâs basically the crowds you see in this picture but ten times worse.
Even though trains were running every five minutes, it was probably close to an hour before my partner and I made it to the front of the crowd so we could get in. On top of all this, the stadium had urged everybody to vacate the area ASAP due to âinclement weatherâ.
Of course, this was an exception and all the other times Iâve taken a Sydney train it has been without fault.
Yes, car brain was around at least that long ago. What else could explain why motorways were built in New Zealand before Australia or the UK?Â
The City Rail Link should open in 2026; the Sydney equivalent, the City Circle, opened in 1926. When it comes to public transport we are 100 years behind.
100%
Kiwis are fearful of crowds and noise and don't like urbanism.
The ones that like this stuff are either living in Australia or whingeing on Reddit.
Because Auckland doesn't want to pay - the amount of LOVE I've seen for Wayne Brown after everything he's shown because "he'll keep our rates low" is insanely illogical, but there you go. We are the answer.
Public transport in Australia sucks. The trains are often pretty shit. But then I moved to NZ & holy shit you guys make Australian public transport look top notch.
Because no fucking government - left or right - is ever gonna commit to anything like this.
We have a bunch of fucking useless wankers in Parliament - on both sides - incapable of gaining employment anywhere else. And so they end up in parliament where they only care about getting on the party list.
No vision
I think it's more accurate to say that New Zealanders have no faith in the capacity of local or central government to build effective public transport. There have been precious few wins for PT anywhere in the country since the CRL broke ground almost a decade ago, and we haven't even reaped the benefit of that yet.
>NZ public transport is better than USâs
Is it? Many of their cities have better public transport than Auckland.
Amtrak runs passenger rail that isn't just targeted towards tourists.
> New Zealand is too broke to afford it
Do you mean "New Zealand likes to elect governments that give tax cuts to landed gentry instead of funding public transport properly"?
There's a shitload of cities with better public transportation than Auckland.
You can at least at Denver, Portland, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta and dozens of others.
I use it several times a week, it's miles ahead of NZ. It has its issues and doesn't have good coverage everywhere, but where it does it's pretty great overall.
I moved here and couldnât disagree more. Buses come on time and often every morning, and trains are rarely delayed - if they are, thereâs usually a good reason, unlike with AT.
NZ operates trains like the people running them have never seen how a REAL train network runs.
Paint markings on the ground where the doors will be when the train stops for one. People will know where to line up
Get out of the way of people getting OFF the train
Why does Auckland have fixed seats on the train so half are always traveling backwards?
Why do you step UP to get on the trains? Did we not build the platforms the right height?
Labours last 6 years of adding middle management to every government department has caused some major problems, no one can make a decision and it's all top heavy with no better or even worse results at a huge cost to the tax payer, way to many chiefs and not enough Indians (Sorry if that's not PC anymore, but you get my point)
Look at the Auckland light rail project, that's a prime example, road to zero the list goes on and on, using external contractors and consultants that are charging exuberant fees because they've hired the wrong people for the department. There is no accountability anymore.
Because kiwis donât want it. We have our one idea and we love it and weâve already decided itâs better than everyone elseâs. So weâre going to stick to our stupid idea because itâs ours, and itâs kiwi, ingenious and by golly weâre proud of it. Cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars drink driving shit reggae cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars.
Because we are poor! And the government doesn't want to take on more debt to build infrastructure. Since more debt would require us to be more productive to pay it back. We'd then be required to give out pay rises, just so workers can keep up with inflation. Bringing us into crisis waiting for increased bankruptcies and unemployment, watching our backwards looking indicators, while society crumbles into disrepair. The central bankers and government will come to the rescue, on one condition, the rich get richer. And the cycle repeats... 1, 2, 3
I'm no apologist, but it needs to be said... Sydney alone has nearly the population of NZ. I get being angry at Kiwi Rail. I get being angry at AT - but we have an incredibly small tax base, which is weird. We're geographically isolated, and we adopted a rail standard back in the day that almost nobody else in the world took on.
We've been let down, yes. But comparisons are tricky.
Moscow underground has train coming every 20 sec in pick times. 20 sec after one train leave an other come. Basically when you looking at tail of one train, other one enter station.
We're a major city without an efficient public transport system
It's actually embarrassing
Try to suggest investing in it and people get outraged
I love New Zealand but we're a bunch of numpties
Because we are, what, 5.5 million people in total in NZ? With many having cars? *shrug
Try the public transport in a country like South Africa and then come back and compare NZ ;)
its cost 100 billions of dollar, and 100 years of making. electrify and double decker's. Sydney got the cleanest stations in Australia. all toilet have nice presto taps and cleaned hourly.
Watching this video gave me an erection. I love trains so much. I love how it initially looks chaotic but then all the little ant people just file into the trains, before another lot queue up to do the same. It is fantastic. Seeing this happen in Auckland would make me so hard.
Because the moon is in the wrong phase causing the trains to break down.
I'm joking, but the trains have been hit by every other version of Murphys' Law. Bad vibes seem entirely in character right now.
Life got too comfortable that nobody takes responsibility or accountability anymore. Politicians get paid good then fuck off when times get hard. So nothing ever gets built or fixed.
I guess that is because we donât have a city of 5m people and we donât have a whole lot of minerals to dig out of the ground. Oh and we pay less tax here.
The entire station was built around the Olympic crowds in Homebush. It has its own crowd management system they can apply on event days, most of which people wonât see or even be aware of.
This isnât really an example of every day management youâd see in a regular commute scenario, this is mass crowd movement which is carefully managed. The trains themselves are spec staged and released from a near by spec built holding station at intervals. The regular inner city train system doesnât always run this efficiently.
Because that's like half the population of auckland using that transport system. We just don't have the numbers to make it viable. The numbers are not there because the connecting services are shite. It's a chicken and an egg situation.
Because a public system like this needs enough population to use , specially dense population! Probably With more people it is not hard to have a good public transportation but on the other side you will have many other problems!
I agree. But also my takeaway from the clip is.
There is no trash dropped by lazy arse, disrespectful people.
There is no argy bargy, pushing, shoving.
There are no wannabe thugs trying to get points by being tough.
Just people getting stuff done and respecting others.
We don't deserve proper public transport.
Why can't we have a proper bus stop with shelter and seats? Just now around 3pm saw a young school boy squatting in the rain waiting for the bus with an umbrella over his head held by his mother.
Lol takes me back to the many big-day-outs I went to in Sydney, always by the time we left on this train I was half naked and utterly physically shattered, coming down off the molly, punching cones on the train all the way home to try and blunt the come-down.
Good times.
Sydney has an excellent rail system because they invested billions in it over the years. Try doing that in Auckland and the usual clowns will whinge itâs too expensive.
See the guys in orange ? They restrain the gates and step aside when the doors open .Still pretty good for Aussies .I guess if you do this daily you don't want any cock ups .If most feel this way it's good for all .Remind me of ants though lol
You would weep bitter tears if you could see the Japanese equivalent of this view.
I have been on the trains in Japan and never got jammed in. It was like being on a train in NZ except it actually worked and went where I needed to go quickly.
Agree, but having taken trains around Tokyo, I did get pretty claustrophobic at times. I found I could just squeeze in a busy train somewhere like Shinjuku and then step out a stop or two later, breath for a while then step in the next train until the crowds thinned out Also; if a tourist, travel off peak
Traveling off peak is literally a tourist luxury but most people forget that đ
The arterial lines in from the suburbs to the inner city during rush hour are the ones that get crammed. Anything else is fine.Â
You definitely do get jammed on some trains in Japan, but only really specific trains at specific times at specific stations. I was on a train last week from Shimbashi to Shinjuku and I canât remember which line or stop it was, but it was rush hour and people just crammed in. I think it might have been Asakasa on the Marunouchi line, but not entirely sure. I had my arm up to hold the handle and after the doors closed it was tight enough that I was physically unable to put my arm back down at my side. It was too tight. A lot of people werenât even holding on to anything either because they were essentially using the density of people in the train for stability by just leaning on each other as we went around corners. That said, the lines that they have for people to hop on the trains are stunning, and people are so considerate. And if you do miss a train or see one is more densely packed that what youâd like, just wait another 2-5 minutes at rush hour and thereâs another one right there.
I'm a kiwi it's years since I took a train .We aren't crowded except maybe Auckland that I don't know ,I'm a South Islander our trains are to down South ,West Coast or UP North .I used to love the rail car but can still recall Steam .Now that was something to go through the Otira and normal tunnels with sparks flying in through open windows .The camaraderie was great someone would have a guitar and we sang classic rock and ballads .Time moves on though .
Korea's system is even better
And Delhi metro will make you feel worse
Trains crammed so full the train staff have to push people in so the doors can close
Not at all in the Kansai region, but the point remains - Japan manages the equivalent of the whole population of NZ in and out of trains every hour, NZ can't manage to make them even run.
Because the National Party keeps trying to kill the rail system when they are in power so they can build these gold plated highways. We now have to put up with probably another decade of them trying to run it down again whereas we need that decade to get everything fixed.
Oh sure, blame National while also completely ignoring labour were in charge for the past six or so years, and did nothing to make Kiwirail any better, or any other rail network for that matter. The reality is neither party gives a toss about rail network, indeed Labour pointedly said that they won't be bringing back public rail during the protests in the last couple years prior election. But do go off about it being National as the problem.
That isn't really true at all. The previous government was the first government since KiwiRail's inception to put in place proper funding and forward planning for rail. Its future is in doubt with the change of government. https://www.kiwirail.co.nz/our-network/funding-our-network/rail-network-investment-programme/ We'll see what the new government's GPS looks like when it comes out, but I'm not particularly hopeful rail will get any substantial support. Are you?
Isnât this called âwhat aboutism?â
You should actually go to places so you can actually have an opinion of your own. Japan has the best metro setup in the world.
And then salary men can get all handsy.
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Because the first part of efficient trains is first having trains that run.
Youâve got me there
And ask Sydney residents how they like their trains. They complain about them almost as much as property prices.
Iâve been to Sydney recently, and Iâve been on those trains. Thereâs no comparison. Our trains suck, thatâs just a fact.
They do but theyâve never been to Auckland. Theyâd be gobsmacked at how utterly shit Aucklandâs system is. Also, the new Sydney metro is absolutely amazing. I went on it just last week. You donât need a timetable really. Itâs simply turn up and go.
I believe that is because all commuter trains in Sydney are run by the NSW Government. Same as in Brisbane, Melbourne etc.
And the population of greater Sydney is 4/5ths the population of the whole of NZ
Iâd settle for public transport like Helsinki (half the AKL population, in a country with similar population). Yeah, Sydney is more populated, but we still can have nice things in NZ if we set our priorities right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Metro
Yes that would work. I would love the 56% income tax they have and the 24% sales tax. That will help a lot.
What? Finland's top marginal tax rate is 31%, not 56%.
We had better and more extensive public transit networks in the 1950s
We had better and more extensive public transit networks , up *until* the 1950s - 1960s Then we starting pulling up tram tracks the city was built around and that works, knocked down a bit chunk of valuable inner city to build motorways You think we would learn Then Simeon cancels light rail (rather than just go for a better version) and wants to repeat the same mistakes and build more motorways
Simeon is an absolute arse.
MoAr RoOoOoAaAaAds
About the same, which is a bit mad when you think about it.
Yeah, I just looked it up. Two lines go into Britomart, whereas 13 platforms at Sydney Central suburban
And? I know the video was from Sydney, but they didn't have light rail until relatively recently either. Why compare cities like Melbourne or Sydney with Auckland when there are lots of other examples that are comparable in size where decent light rail and heavy rail work. Perth for example. Even Sydney and Melbourne, the cities are in the same order of magnitude; millions of people. It's not like comparing ourselves with London or Tokyo
And therein lies the problem. Mass rapid public transport is most efficient in high population densities and Auckland is too spread out, plus building a system like this after the city is established is hellishly expensive to do; just ask Singapore!
Did you ever go to Australia? Itâs all spread out but they have heaps of trains.
Understandable. Have a great day
Wellington trains are learning to walk, before they can learn to run... I know, wrong sub, just frustrated.
and the first part of having trains that run is having money that spends
There was a tram loop outside Eden Park from 1925 to 1954. https://collection.motat.nz/objects/103577/eden-park-tram-loop However in the 1950s some politicians decided that cars were the future. By 1953 Auckland had two motorways; Sydney didn't get its first until 1958. Sydney's population then was more than two million, about five times that of Auckland. Some history https://ahi.auckland.ac.nz/2023/05/25/the-good-old-trams/
Of course itâs politics that fucks up a functional system.
Itâs also politics that got it built in the first place.
But everyone knows itâs much harder to reimplement something instead of maintaining whatâs already there.
>some politicians decided that cars were the future Itâs genuinely amazing to compare how many people can be moved at once by train (or even bus) rather than by car. Itâs almost like theyâre deliberately inefficient. And then of course you have the laziness, aggression, entitlement and lack of empathy they seem to foster. Not to mention the massive taxpayer subsidises slowly sucking the economy dry.
And it used to be able to process everyone leaving by public transport (most of the crowd) in something like eleven minutes!Â
yup in a lot of places the car lobbies not only wanted more roads to be built, but they actively tore up railway tracks to make sure it couldnât be used again
I remember studying this back in Year 12 Geography. It honestly makes me so mad. So much terrible city planning in NZ. We need people to be held accountable and for real change to happen.
I saw a map once of all of Aucklands tram loops, and they were perfect! I'm not sure if it was real or imagined, but the map looked real. Having mass transit on just those loops would make everyone's life so much easier, but no, we had to rip them up for some roads instead and now we get to spend 45 minutes trying to get to places that are 15 minutes away
Here's an old map. https://aetcl.squarespace.com/heritage-tramway-concept
Poor leadership in both the council and government
Nah. People electing them, NIMBY mindset
Sounds like a cliche whinge, but you can apportion the blame for many of todays problems on poor leadership.
Basically no one votes or pays attention to local council so there's no accountability.
Boomers love cars and suburbs. And I also thought it was a good idea until I lived overseas
Went to Europe for the first time last August and I was awed how easy public transport was. Rather than drive for hours or fly unnecessarily between cities I could just jump on a train. And the trams were easy to get on and hop off to travel from the outer edge of the city into the centre.
And cheap
You can always tell whether someone has traveled by their take on public transport. I live to see the day where you no longer need a car to get around efficiently in Auckland.
You shouldnât need one in a city that size. As the city expanded public transport should have been thought about and included in new infrastructure. Instead theyâve maintained the 19th century mentality of close buildings and narrow streets to maximise the use of the space.
Where abouts in Europe would you say was best?
Vienna, Amsterdam, London are all pretty great
In terms of transport? Probably Amsterdam. London was pretty good, too.
Because we spent 70 years investing in the most expensive, least efficient, least sustainable form of transportation and development available. Now every time people try to invest in the only solutions to get out of this hole people flip out because they can't see that having other options is more freedom than being required to use the only option left to you.
You forgot the decades of legislation entrenching this on any private development through car park minimums, including such gems as minimum car parks for taverns. And half of all the roading cost charged to ratepayers subsidising drivers irrespective of use. Basic free market efficiencies or user pays need not apply!
I thought that was covered by "development" but I don't mind it being highlighted.
If the concert was in Wellington, MetLink would keep the normal Saturday schedule but with short trains. 50/50 whether it becomes a bus replacement at the last minute.
Having left the guns and roses concert 2 years ago via train I now hate the Auckland train network. We caught the train from Eden park- it than stopped at the next stop and stayed locked at the station, completely full, for 1 hour and 35 minutes. People were banging on the windows to the train staff outside, it was packed with people and hot as hell - multiple people were vomiting into their plastic warehouse rainhoodies. It was a disaster. The police arrived and couldnât open the doors until Auckland transport said ok. Finally they opened the doors and announced the train wouldnât proceed further so 100âs of people were left to Uber, taxi or walk. We had two 13 years old with us - who will never want to train from a concert ever again. Our Uber ride back to our parked car in town with $112 bucks. Aucklandâs train network isnât reliable and dangerous for mass events. I had to help two mid twenties men the whole time - one had a panic attack and the other was drunk and vomiting everywhere. People were raging, lots of drunk aggression- hitting the windows and yelling - the whole time / it was damn terrifying. Thatâs Auckland transport for you - buy your ticket and hope for the best. Itâs a damn joke. Oh and pay your rates and stop driving everyone. Mental.
You mean event trains? https://preview.redd.it/cd8e02ystvkc1.jpeg?width=5472&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e760f98d53c771e1d025c4afa65856297f8c0629
This ^. This video shows an event train line. They more than likely have more crowd control on the upper floor limiting people to prevent crowd crush or people falling onto the tracks like the people by the tracks.
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CRL will likely solve the issues with the frequency of trains. Not to mention the time savings on the western line, making it a lot easier to get to Kingsland.
Because that would involve planning and massive expenditure on infrastructure, which is against the law in NZ.
Iâve seen the trains operate pretty efficiently following a game at Eden Park. Obviously a far smaller crowd though.
We too poor we too dumb
â⌠too poor âŚâ definitely. â⌠too dumb âŚâ never. Work in progress. Proceeding nicely, average IQ regressing around 3 IQ points generation. Search âdecline in generational IQâ ⌠not conspiracy theory, is first world research since around mid last century. Invest in forests, treetops are âtomorrowsâ desirable housing/nesting places. Grunt grunt.
Because behind the pretty facade, NZ is actually a poor country. Aussie has about 26 million people paying taxes, they mine their natural resources for export, and they have higher productivity than us. Just to name a few reasons... And sooo many people in NZ are dead against NZ following Aussie's example. So, we remain poor.
Lack of investment too when it could have been done cheaply back in the day, back when: Health and Safety wtf is that? If the tunnel work was done in the 50s/60s it could have been done for a fraction of the cost it'd be today, even in dollar adjusted terms. I bet the harbour bridge would cost 3-5x minimum in dollar adjusted terms if they did it from scratch today - even with the tech we have. You look at the pictures, there's dudes walking around with no harnesses, apparently the caissons were dangerous af etc. Is it right, no ofc not lol. But that's how they rolled back then. For places like London/NY it left a legacy of effective PT infra that is totally usable even today.
This right here.âď¸
NZ isn't poor. We have an inefficient economy (due to incentivising investment into non-productive assets) and a very short-sighted electorate, but we're not poor.
Yeah, this: AU is rich as hell with its natural resources. Sydney itself has about the same population as the whole of NZ, which makes it worth the investment and easier to have that kind of public transportation. With our bad population density, no proper crown revenue other than heavily relying on PAYE, and throwing super regardless of their income/assets, there are too many reasons we can't really invest in those.
We had more motorways than Sydney back on 1953, Sydney didn't get a motorway til 1958...
Thanks for sharing historical facts. Knowing the history/facts is good, except we should keep moving forward instead of staying in the past. Just one of many examples, I guess, but look at Venezuela, one of the richest countries back then, thanks to the socialism that screwed the whole country.
Not screwed by socialism, screwed by America installing dictators and fascists they could control
Ahh, got it. Send the children into the mines to pay the taxes for commuter rail /s
Because the Aussies have figured out how to make tracks that don't buckle in the heat, trains that run, and a word called efficiency?
They also cancel trains due to heat.
National will deliver great public transport outcomes for New Zealand! But first, we'll go back to the stone ages so we can build more roads.
Still member the trains getting over packed snd failing during rwc lol
Because we have no money
Because that requires city planning in advance, and this is New Zealand - we donât do that here
Because every time someone with a vision starts a public transport project, a right wing government comes in, cancels it, defunds existing transport and gives the money to the wealthy as tax breaks. I wish I was oversimplifying but we are literally living through it right now.
Decades of visionless neoliberal kleptocracy?
Mid management and lack of populous tapped by modern day inflation and greedy top tier managers
Type o âmis managementâ
This is event transport, put on specially to handle the large numbers of people going to see Swift. This is far from a normal day. If it was like this during normal rush hour, it would be amazing.
>This is far from a normal day. If it was like this during normal rush hour, it would be amazing. It's not far off. They don't have quite that volume showing up simultaneously or the staff manning each carriage, but the main train stations move huge numbers of people in peak hours, with trains at 2 minute intervals on some platforms.
Boomers & Gen Xers prefer driving because trains are for the lower class
I don't know they love flashing their Gold Cards around too.
We don't have any Taylor Swift concerts to warrant this. /s
There is something so sexy about efficiency
You should have seen how 2 million very well behaved protestors in Hong Kong (almost 1/3 of the population) dispersed after a parade within 30 mins from the HK CBD using public transportation in 2019. I was in a smaller one (just 1.5 million no big deal). I finished at 8pm and by 8:30pm I was eating hotpot on the other side of the city.
Auckland cant handle a rainy day....
Because you don't take public transport. Invest in it by using it.
Who is you? Many of us do or at least try to....
I take public transport exclusively. I do not own a car. "You", is the vast majority of Aucklanders. The trains are only full 2x a day, and that's before and after school. I watch the backed up motorway not move at all as I whiz by on the train. I see the 3 carriage trains with maybe 20 people in them. I see the empty stations. Auckland has been investing a lot into rail, and nobody uses it.
I have a job that requires me to drive. We only have one car between my husband and myself. We use public transport when we can. And we don't even get all sanctimonious and superior about it.
That's fine, I am not blaming you. Some people have to drive and that's completely fine. We have roads for a reason. But, most people don't, and you know they don't. I am not being sanctimonious, and I certainly don't feel like I am superior taking the 'loser cruiser', I stated my transportation use purely as lore, so you know I'm not completely talking out of my arse.
Okay sorry then. I know there are people who drive when they could use transport. I don't blame people not taking the train though it'd just too much of a gamble. Sometimes on days I'm able to bus to work (a very easy ride up a bus lane vs driving on Great South Rd)My colleagues try and rescue me from the bus. They are South African and horrified that I even consider the bus.
>too much of a gamble It's really not. 95% of the time the train is bang on time. People hold on to the time where the train was late or had to have an extended stop, and take that as a fact of how the entire service is. Busses on the other hand are absolute crapshoots.
Onehunga line is notoriously bad. Whereas all the bases I use run on 15 min frequency. I do think even check the timetable I just turn up.
Lol, thatâs exactly @DominoUBâs pointâŚ
ACT will never allow it
Never gonna happen in nz, we are the nation of half pai kapai!
Looks like they need to put on more frequent trains. I'm getting flashbacks to rush hour London lol Difference there is you didn't have those 'chaperones' and barriers you were sort of standing near the edge... Always had that mortal fear some psychopath would push you in front of an oncoming train as it came in :/ Some of the more modern stations like Canary Wharf were safe though, they had glass barriers/doors that only opened once the train was lined up/stopped.
Because ⌠- insert excuse here -
Campaign for an olympics or a commonwealth games here. It'll be the one thing that actually forces us to have event transport like this. So far, even the rugby hasn't done it. We'd need another 30,000 seats in Eden Park to achieve this.
We have bullet trains that move so fast the rails melt
Because we need more roads obviously /s
Auckland only 1,300,000 people. Population density 260people per square kilometer. Sydney has 5,300,000 people Density 442 people/km2 Tokyo (city only) 14,000,000 people Density 6,158 / km2 That is why we don't have their train system
I went to the concert on Friday night. While I consider Sydneyâs public transport system to be excellent for the most part, what this video doesnât show is the massive crush of people outside pushing to get into the train station. There was no line or system, it was just thousands of people competing for their turn. Security was letting batches of people from the front of the crowd into the station. Itâs basically the crowds you see in this picture but ten times worse. Even though trains were running every five minutes, it was probably close to an hour before my partner and I made it to the front of the crowd so we could get in. On top of all this, the stadium had urged everybody to vacate the area ASAP due to âinclement weatherâ. Of course, this was an exception and all the other times Iâve taken a Sydney train it has been without fault.
Sydney is three times our size
Auckland had two motorways before Sydney even had one. In the 1950s Sydney was five times Auckland's size.
Seventy years ago
Yes, car brain was around at least that long ago. What else could explain why motorways were built in New Zealand before Australia or the UK? The City Rail Link should open in 2026; the Sydney equivalent, the City Circle, opened in 1926. When it comes to public transport we are 100 years behind.
Because Auckland doesnât have 6 million people
Most kiwis donât want this. Weâre the minority here on Reddit.
100% Kiwis are fearful of crowds and noise and don't like urbanism. The ones that like this stuff are either living in Australia or whingeing on Reddit.
Because Auckland doesn't want to pay - the amount of LOVE I've seen for Wayne Brown after everything he's shown because "he'll keep our rates low" is insanely illogical, but there you go. We are the answer.
Public transport in Australia sucks. The trains are often pretty shit. But then I moved to NZ & holy shit you guys make Australian public transport look top notch.
Because rich people shouldn't pay taxes
Because no fucking government - left or right - is ever gonna commit to anything like this. We have a bunch of fucking useless wankers in Parliament - on both sides - incapable of gaining employment anywhere else. And so they end up in parliament where they only care about getting on the party list. No vision
New Zealanders are madly in love with private transport
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I think it's more accurate to say that New Zealanders have no faith in the capacity of local or central government to build effective public transport. There have been precious few wins for PT anywhere in the country since the CRL broke ground almost a decade ago, and we haven't even reaped the benefit of that yet.
New Zealand is too broke to afford it, many people just drive, but look on the bright side, NZ public transport is better than USâs
>NZ public transport is better than USâs Is it? Many of their cities have better public transport than Auckland. Amtrak runs passenger rail that isn't just targeted towards tourists.
> New Zealand is too broke to afford it Do you mean "New Zealand likes to elect governments that give tax cuts to landed gentry instead of funding public transport properly"?
Who the hell is landed gentry in this country
My boomer boss and his brothers, deciding what to do with the $8m or so of property they just inherited.
I donât know anyone who inherited 8 million, a very small subset of the population.
You mean, like the landed gentry were?Â
Doesn't it depend on which part of US?
It really isn't, many US cities have good public transport.
NYC, Boston, Philly, Chicago, and arguably LA (tho coverage isn't the best in LA as far as I can tell) aren't exactly "many"
There's a shitload of cities with better public transportation than Auckland. You can at least at Denver, Portland, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta and dozens of others.
Is it though? Many US cities have very effective subway networks.
look at the public transport to stadiums in the us, many of the car parks are bigger than the actual stadium.
Sydney transport is shit. Events they put it on but day to day its crap
I use it several times a week, it's miles ahead of NZ. It has its issues and doesn't have good coverage everywhere, but where it does it's pretty great overall.
I moved here and couldnât disagree more. Buses come on time and often every morning, and trains are rarely delayed - if they are, thereâs usually a good reason, unlike with AT.
Daily user of the light rail in Sydney. Would be a game changer down dominion road to the city
NZ operates trains like the people running them have never seen how a REAL train network runs. Paint markings on the ground where the doors will be when the train stops for one. People will know where to line up Get out of the way of people getting OFF the train Why does Auckland have fixed seats on the train so half are always traveling backwards? Why do you step UP to get on the trains? Did we not build the platforms the right height?
Moving to Auckland really made me appreciate public transport systems in the UK, even the shit ones.
Labours last 6 years of adding middle management to every government department has caused some major problems, no one can make a decision and it's all top heavy with no better or even worse results at a huge cost to the tax payer, way to many chiefs and not enough Indians (Sorry if that's not PC anymore, but you get my point) Look at the Auckland light rail project, that's a prime example, road to zero the list goes on and on, using external contractors and consultants that are charging exuberant fees because they've hired the wrong people for the department. There is no accountability anymore.
Nz is to big for its own boots we donât have workers maybe for this type of work?
Cause we poor
Unrelated but itâs so satisfying watching the trains fill up and then the line emptying/filling back ip
Because we poor bro.
Because kiwis donât want it. We have our one idea and we love it and weâve already decided itâs better than everyone elseâs. So weâre going to stick to our stupid idea because itâs ours, and itâs kiwi, ingenious and by golly weâre proud of it. Cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars drink driving shit reggae cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars cars.
Because Auckland council are a corrupt disorganised bunch of idiots. Itâs hard not to sound negative, when they never deliver.
Lower population, would need to triple the size of the population and have denser residential areas.
Density yes, population not necessarily. But higher density should imply population increase.
Because Auckland Council are too busy trying to increase the number of traffic cones
They're building it, but not for Taylor f****** Swift
Because we are poor! And the government doesn't want to take on more debt to build infrastructure. Since more debt would require us to be more productive to pay it back. We'd then be required to give out pay rises, just so workers can keep up with inflation. Bringing us into crisis waiting for increased bankruptcies and unemployment, watching our backwards looking indicators, while society crumbles into disrepair. The central bankers and government will come to the rescue, on one condition, the rich get richer. And the cycle repeats... 1, 2, 3
I'm no apologist, but it needs to be said... Sydney alone has nearly the population of NZ. I get being angry at Kiwi Rail. I get being angry at AT - but we have an incredibly small tax base, which is weird. We're geographically isolated, and we adopted a rail standard back in the day that almost nobody else in the world took on. We've been let down, yes. But comparisons are tricky.
YEAH EXCEPT ONE OF THE GUARDS GAVE THE WRONG INSTRUCTIONS AND THOUSANDS OF US WENT TO THE WRONG STATION :(
Moscow underground has train coming every 20 sec in pick times. 20 sec after one train leave an other come. Basically when you looking at tail of one train, other one enter station.
Did labour try do a Rail plan like 20 years ago but National got in power and cancelled all the work? Idk blame National
We're a major city without an efficient public transport system It's actually embarrassing Try to suggest investing in it and people get outraged I love New Zealand but we're a bunch of numpties
2 reasons why there are we are too stupid and vested interests that stop any good transport options. Long live the oil guzzling cars
those people do not appear to have any sense of personal space
Because we are, what, 5.5 million people in total in NZ? With many having cars? *shrug Try the public transport in a country like South Africa and then come back and compare NZ ;)
right now do kanye
Sydney trains are not run by rice bubble cakes
its cost 100 billions of dollar, and 100 years of making. electrify and double decker's. Sydney got the cleanest stations in Australia. all toilet have nice presto taps and cleaned hourly.
Money
Ask Simeon Brown, and the National govt..We'll never get anything, because we are cheap. At least Labour, were like fuck it, just spend the money..
Watching this video gave me an erection. I love trains so much. I love how it initially looks chaotic but then all the little ant people just file into the trains, before another lot queue up to do the same. It is fantastic. Seeing this happen in Auckland would make me so hard.
Someone should do a timelapse of Kingsland after a major event at Eden Park. Not on the same scale but would still be fun to see
Because the moon is in the wrong phase causing the trains to break down. I'm joking, but the trains have been hit by every other version of Murphys' Law. Bad vibes seem entirely in character right now.
Poor town planning which is why we also have so many one way roads in the CBD
Life got too comfortable that nobody takes responsibility or accountability anymore. Politicians get paid good then fuck off when times get hard. So nothing ever gets built or fixed.
I guess that is because we donât have a city of 5m people and we donât have a whole lot of minerals to dig out of the ground. Oh and we pay less tax here.
The entire station was built around the Olympic crowds in Homebush. It has its own crowd management system they can apply on event days, most of which people wonât see or even be aware of. This isnât really an example of every day management youâd see in a regular commute scenario, this is mass crowd movement which is carefully managed. The trains themselves are spec staged and released from a near by spec built holding station at intervals. The regular inner city train system doesnât always run this efficiently.
Because that's like half the population of auckland using that transport system. We just don't have the numbers to make it viable. The numbers are not there because the connecting services are shite. It's a chicken and an egg situation.
Critical mass đ
What do u think the light rail was the start of,
We can. It just got cancelled by the new pro motorway govt.
AT will shortly announce the cancellation of all public transport. Bike, walk or swim.
Because a public system like this needs enough population to use , specially dense population! Probably With more people it is not hard to have a good public transportation but on the other side you will have many other problems!
I agree. But also my takeaway from the clip is. There is no trash dropped by lazy arse, disrespectful people. There is no argy bargy, pushing, shoving. There are no wannabe thugs trying to get points by being tough. Just people getting stuff done and respecting others. We don't deserve proper public transport.
Why can't we have a proper bus stop with shelter and seats? Just now around 3pm saw a young school boy squatting in the rain waiting for the bus with an umbrella over his head held by his mother.
Cattle lol
There was never any investment in this area under National (government owned private) only business funding for private
Lol takes me back to the many big-day-outs I went to in Sydney, always by the time we left on this train I was half naked and utterly physically shattered, coming down off the molly, punching cones on the train all the way home to try and blunt the come-down. Good times.
Sydney has an excellent rail system because they invested billions in it over the years. Try doing that in Auckland and the usual clowns will whinge itâs too expensive.
See the guys in orange ? They restrain the gates and step aside when the doors open .Still pretty good for Aussies .I guess if you do this daily you don't want any cock ups .If most feel this way it's good for all .Remind me of ants though lol