Subscribe to RSSHappy Birthday New Lynn
New Lynn’s new transport hub is one year old.
It feels as if it has been around for ever - and the underground train station was in operation a few months before fully finished - but we forget how it was at New Lynn waiting for a train two years ago.
How we caught trains in New Lynn 2 years ago
And how frustrating it was for local motorists having to wait for a train across the road as they approached the town centre. It was seeing that nonsense that finally persuaded then Finance Minister Michael Cullen to buy into the project.
And who could forget that bus terminal adjacent to the train stop:
Remember the old New Lynn bus depot ?
This used to be where buses came
The building of the trench and new station was an impressive engineering feat, recently repeated at the new Manukau station which opens in February.
The building of the underground trench
And then the new hub began to rise.
It was an exciting day when the first freight train tested the trenc/
The first freight train tries out the trench
There were two openings – one for the train station in March in which guests including then kiwiRail chair Jim Bolger and Transport Minister Steven Joyce were among the officials who went by train from Henderson to New Lynn -the first official train to use the trench.
Steven and others take a train to theopening
The first official opening
The second, a year ago to open the bus section and completion of the hub had the honour of the then Governor-General.
Governor General Sir Anand Satyanand with New Lynn MP David Cunliffe
And so for the past year, we have been able to enjoy a combined bus and train hub.
New Lynn buses leave outside the train station
And this has helped trigger the continuing transformation of the town centre.
Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey who drove the project before the super city was born, told the opening the modern interchange was key to the multi million dollar regeneration of New Lynn and shows the huge benefits that can come from an integrated approach to urban renewal.
“The stunning new transport centre is the first step in New Lynn’s long-awaited transformation and the lynchpin in the largest urban regeneration project in New Zealand today. It will soon be complemented by the extension of Clark Street to Great North Road and the redevelopment of Totara Avenue and Todd Triangle as a more pedestrian-friendly retail area,” he says.
“With a projected 20,000 residents and 14,000 workers in New Lynn by 2030, creating an exciting, successful and accessible town centre has been a top priority for Waitakere and having other funders buy into that vision has been key to helping us achieve it.”
The new Clark St overbridge
And then in February next year we will get another big opening - the new Manukau rail trench and line.
The new Manukau underground station
6 Comments
It is certainly a pleasure to drive around New Lynn now.
Not so much of a pleasure to walk around New Lynn now though now that the place is surrounded by four to six lanes of cars. And, sadly, the station’s maintenance programme seems a little lacking: the sculptural panels are covered in dust; some of the mesh screening has been removed and not replaced; the glass platform canopies are spattered with gravel deposited by kids chucking it over the trench wall; and due to what appears to be a design fault, the escalator canopy appears impossible to clean and is currently filthy.
> It is certainly a pleasure to drive around New Lynn now.
You missed the point
Though admittedly, there’s been a ridiculous amount of road building going on as well as PT work there.
That freight trains looks like a passenger train to me!
Every time I catch the train I marvel at how much Auckland have achieved the last 5 years. Rail in Auckland is so different to what it was when I started using rail about 6 years ago. The only trouble is that my local station is Mount Albert which has hardly changed…
Hard to believe it’s been a year already, for both this and Onehunga.
Roll on Manukau!
I think it will look better once its all finished. Lessons to be learnt from this… Perhaps the people will have more ownership of their train station if you get the community involved. Schools and local churches could have contributed to the art installations. Manukau are fortunate enought to build on what has been done in other areas around Auckland.