Why invest in
light rail?
High capacity, high quality, rapid transit is critical to developing a modern, connected city which supports improved and new public spaces, homes, shops and community facilities.
Light rail offers convenience, reliability, safety and comfort, making it a highly attractive public transport option. Unlike a bus route, rail is permanent and carries a lot more people.
Attractive, permanent public transport encourages greater investment along the route because businesses and people want to be close to stops or stations. This enables more people to live in existing communities and can reduce the need for new development on the edges of the city.
Light rail will improve our city by
- Making it easier to move around
- Enabling more homes in neighbourhoods, instead of the city edges
- Reducing our reliance on cars and our carbon footprint
- Stimulating quality investment in compact, mixed-use neighbourhoods
- Enabling 97,000 extra jobs and 66,000 new homes by 2051
Supporting growth
22% of Auckland’s population growth and 37% of job growth will take place along the City Centre to Māngere route in the next 30 years.
Revitalising communities and providing more quality homes means more people can afford to live in their existing neighbourhoods, reducing the need to develop on the edges of the city.
More time back in your day
The average Aucklander spends a whopping 80 hours a year sitting in traffic. Our days start early to get to jobs, and we’ve less time to spend with family and friends, or running household errands. Light rail will cut travel times by up to half for communities along the route and take up to 14,500 cars off our roads.
Did you know?
Tāmaki Makaurau accounts for 37.4% of NZ’s GDP and employs 35.2% of our workforce. But we are not as productive as we could be, or as other global cities our size.
Congestion is one of the things that’s holding us back, costing the Auckland region an estimated $1.3B a year.
Taking 14,500 cars off the road at peak, light rail can reduce congestion, freeing up space for freight and other vehicles who need to travel, improving productivity. This benefits all New Zealanders.
