‘We can have beautiful things!’ Why Auckland’s City Rail Link is about much more than trains

By Tom Baker & Salene Schloffel-Armstrong

After nearly a decade and with a budget of NZ$5.493 billion, expectations for Auckland’s City Rail Link are high ahead of its September 13 opening.

The twin 3.45-kilometre tunnels, which will expand the central city’s public transport options and optimise the surrounding rail network, is a transformative piece of infrastructure. That alone is significant.

But what is almost as remarkable is that the City Rail Link project (jointly owned and funded by central and local governments) has also delivered impressive public spaces. Auckland’s new stations – two brand new and one substantially refurbished – go well beyond the functional minimum.

Images and videos released so far have generated genuine excitement. In August, thousands flocked to public previews at the Mangawhau, Te Waihorotiu and Karanga-a-Hape stations – enough people to fill Eden Park.

The unveiling of the architecture, design and public art associated with each station has attracted attention far beyond the typical audience for transport projects.

People are not simply discussing train frequencies and platform layouts. They are discussing public services, infrastructure, and civic design and identity.

But not everyone has come away loving what they saw. Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, for one, questioned the project’s design ambitions after visiting the stations:

They’re like cathedrals. You only have to catch a bloody train. You don’t have to get married there.

The sentiment is perhaps understandable in the context of rising council costs, debts and rates increases. Why spend money making infrastructure beautiful when it only has to work?

There may be deeper cultural forces at work, too. For generations, New Zealanders have celebrated practicality, frugality and the “number 8 wire” mentality. We admire ingenuity and making do with what we have.

This has often extended to urban infrastructure, which has tended toward adequacy over aspiration, efficiency over inspiration.

There are virtues in this approach. Public money should be spent carefully. Infrastructure should serve people before it serves architects.

But a city is not simply a collection of utilitarian engineering solutions. Great cities are full of places that exceed pure functionality.

Libraries could be simple sheds full of books, for example. Parks could be empty grass fields. Museum collections could be stored in warehouses. Yet many cities invest in making these places memorable because public spaces do more than fulfil practical needs.

For infrastructure to be enjoyed, valued and, above all, used by a city’s residents, it needs to embrace more than bare utilitarianism.

Another local example of the success of this approach is Christchurch’s Tūranga library, a site of major civic pride. Such strength of feeling would not have coalesced around a large shed housing the city’s book collection.

Civic infrastructure expresses collective values about what a city thinks its inhabitants deserve. This is why the debate around the City Rail Link feels bigger than being just about trains.

Some have argued the project represents a coming-of-age moment for Auckland – a step toward embracing its identity as a genuinely metropolitan city.

As former Auckland Transport chief executive Dean Kimpton observed, New Zealand infrastructure can sometimes feel “too understated” compared with major world cities.

Or, as public transport advocacy group Greater Auckland put it after the unveiling of two new public art pieces outside midtown station Te Waihorotiu, “We can have beautiful things!”

For decades, Auckland suffered from a peculiar form of civic hesitancy. It wanted the advantages of a major city but often felt uneasy about building infrastructure, public spaces and the civic ambition required to realise them.

The enthusiasm surrounding the City Rail Link suggests that mood may be changing.

Public response so far suggests Aucklanders are not merely interested in shorter journeys and increased rail capacity. There is a sense of excitement and curiosity, perhaps even pride.

You do not need a cathedral to catch a train. But cities are at their best when they occasionally build things that remind people they are part of something larger than the daily commute.

*Tom Baker, Professor of Human Geography, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau and Salene Schloffel-Armstrong, Post-doctoral Fellow, School of Environment, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.