According to the Plan, Auckland has New Zealand’s largest urban infrastructure aspirations over the next 20 years. These include: An inner-city underground passenger rail loop connecting the Britomart Transport centre and the North Auckland Line near Mt Eden station A rail link to the airport A rail line connecting Avondale and Southdown A rail tunnel under the Waitemata Harbour to the North Shore

“It is clear that it will not be feasible for Auckland or New Zealand to fund all these multibillion-dollar projects at the same time. The projects will need to be scoped, prioritised and phased to ensure that steady progress can be maintained while simultaneously ensuring that work continues on improving the infrastructure and networks that already exist”, the report says.

Although with no concrete promises for the airport rail link, this brings Auckland one step closer to global trend of airport multimodality.

There has been some background work done into the feasibility of a railway line to the airport, with Auckland Regional Transport Committee (ARTC) issuing the Draft Auckland Regional Land Transport Study in September 2009.

According to the study, The Airport rail loop consists of connections to the Airport from the north via Onehunga and from the east via Puhinui Station.

“Only limited investigations have been carried out to date on the detailed route of the rail connections, how the introduction of rail would be staged, and what bus services should be established in the interim. It is expected that the Airport rail loop will be constructed in the period 2031 – 2041”, says the report.

The priority will be given to undertake further investigations on the airport rail link development and identifying the funding, ARTC said.

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