Despair in Auckland CBD over CRL slow crawl to finish line

Source: Radio New Zealand

Some central Auckland businesses fear they will go under before the long-awaited and long-delayed City Rail Link [CRL] opens.

The $5.5 billion project connects Waitematā Station with a redeveloped Maungawhau Station and two new underground stations, Te Waihorotiu and Karang-a-Hape, and will carry up to 54,000 passengers an hour.

But by this month, there was still no confirmation of when the new train stations would open, and the CRL would be operational, other than some time in the second half of 2026.

In Auckland CBD, across the road from the construction site of Te Waihorotiu Station, one business was at breaking point.

Krupali Patel works at a restaurant she did not want to name.

She said they had minimal foot traffic, and loud construction was putting off potential customers.

“Business is not going good. It’s very tough for the owner and me. The owner is not making much money, so it’s hard to pay rent. I’m not getting as many hours as I want to work.”

Patel said that unless there was a dramatic improvement, the business would not survive more than a few months.

Barrel N Burger opened on Wellesley Street in December 2025.

Aida Safeia, who works there, said construction of the train station and recently completed work on new bus shelters and wider footpaths right outside their store had slowed business.

But she was optimistic about the future.

“Hopefully, this will be a very busy area, and over time it will compensate for the lack of business we experienced in our opening period.”

At the other end of the line, in Mount Eden, Sarah Lee works at Korean takeaway shop Han Bite, near Maungawhau Station, which had been closed for five years.

She felt disappointed after multiple construction delays.

“We’re expecting that once the train station opens, many people will come and visit us.

“That’s what we’re waiting for, but it keeps being delayed. That’s the problem.

“When we first came here, they said [it would be done by] the end of last year, but early this year I asked the manager of the construction, and he said probably around October this year.”

The entire CRL was meant to be completed by 2021.

But then the project cost blew out by $1.1 billion, and targeted completion dates in 2024 and 2025 came and went.

Lee said a specific completion date would give her business more certainty and allow her to plan for the future.

Further down the road, Jaimik Shukla from Blood Works Tattoo Studio hoped the CRL brought more people to Mount Eden, but if that did not happen, he would consider relocating.

“The business has been in survival mode for the past few months. Sometimes we fall behind on the rent.

“We’re hoping the train station can start as soon as possible so we can get the foot traffic we missed out on for quite a long time.”

But next door, Fenella Chia from Café Ditto said they were doing well and had a healthy number of regulars.

“We’re really happy with the area and the community we’ve built here. It’s really developing, there’s a lot of small cafés opening up.

“We’re not too inhibited by the construction. We’re on the main road, we have a bus stop outside, we’re close to universities.”

Chia said many businesses in the area were looking forward to Mangawhau Station being back up and running and believed the wait would be worthwhile.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand