Auckland Infrastructure Fail?

he was walking to the stadium from eden park

yeah, a mate missed the opening ceremony because he was walking to the stadium from eden park cause the trains weren't going.

Well at least it wasn't a long walk

Pretty good summary of events: http://www.aktnz.co.nz/2011/09/10/what-went-wrong-last-night/

A significant factor in this I think is we still think we can reinvent the wheel every time as if accepting outside help, consultancy or plain learning the lessons others have learned the hard way is somehow not the "Kiwi way".

As one of the thousands on queen st it just seemed fucking bizzare the Police didn't get that it would have been smart to close it to traffic, instead they allowed vehicles to drive down a road filled with pedestrians

That's a good read, and a depressingly familiar account of organisational mistake and disaster - where those at the top are completely out of their depth, and in so doing cause massive failure, from which they then excuse themselves.

I thought the same thing - couldn't work out why cars were allowed on Queen St

You could leave queens wharf but not get into it, even to pass through.

Wtf is everyone going on about the train thing? Its not the train company's fault if people kept hitting the emergency brake and the train shuts down - its the stupid idiots who were pullin the emergency brake!

Mmmm? Why would you be passing through Queens Wharf? It doesn't go anywhere.

Yes, but you need to remember the conditions that lead to these things happening. Train stopped in the middle of nowhere, not moving for ages with no communication in packed out carriages with no airflow? Fuck yes I'd be bailing too. Why the hell didn't they at least stop at stations when facing major delays, where people could get out safely and be moved onto buses if need be?

I'm getting my downtown vocab all mixed up. I meant viaduct > quay st

Ahh ok, I thought they were hitting the emergency brake while the train was going.

Aucklanders should know better than to rely on trains.

Scenes of rail chaos in Auckland on Friday night back up the findings of the World Economic Forum - it's ranked New Zealand's train system as Third World.

The WEF report into rail infrastructure has seen New Zealand ranked number 47 out of 142 nations - behind Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Azerbaijan.

The Government was told more than two years ago that Auckland's infrastructure was not up to scratch for the Rugby World Cup.
....
But Labour says the Government must accept at least some of the blame, because it had received a report from the Auckland Regional Transport Authority on Rugby World Cup transport planning in July 2009.

The report, obtained by Stuff, said at that time there was "an attitude of `this is a small increase in business as usual'."

"The impression is that the level of public transport required for RWC2011 is a little above normal. The levels of patron movement and operational standard [needed for the RWC] are in reality significantly above what is currently delivered."

The Queens Wharf fan zone would "create a number of transport challenges given its close proximity to the Ferry Terminal, Queen Street and Britomart", the report said.

"For an event of this scale, Auckland may not always be able to deliver ultra-high levels of event public transport for all spectators as well as providing normal scheduled public transport."
....
"It is simply not good enough for government ministers to blame the Auckland Council. The Rugby World Cup is a project of national importance that has been micro-managed from the Beehive. Now is the time to show some accountability," Mr Twyford said.

Why isn’t an independent expert running the inquiry into what went so wrong inn Auckland on Friday with transport and the Quay St crush?

The very people who insisted up to the event they had it in hand and could cope with anything are the ones doing the naval gazing.
This would be like having Pike River’s Peter Whittall run the Royal Commission into the mining disaster.

People who lives and breathed this for years and thought they had it right are simply too close to it.

For years this site has complained about the lack of communication from Veolia when things go wrong on the Auckland rail network – often a complete wall of silence.
And last November when U2 concert goers were trapped in crowded carriages and pushed the emergency button, one Australian commented on the post that it was a “total fail -good luck with the RWC.” No lessons were learnt from that event. period.
With Auckland Transport and Veolia cobbling together the report for the Auckland Council tonight, the inquest can only be a once over lightly stating the obvious and not touching the deeper issues that must be answered by someone.
The Government, trying to distance itself madly from any fallout a few months from the election, is anxious to be seen to point the finger entirely at Auckland authorities even though RWC MInister Murray McCully pushed through Queens Wharf being the so called Party Central and parking any more debate about whether suburban Eden Park, not the city, was the suitable place for the matches to be held.

So the report will conclude more buses are needed , Veolia should do better with communication and train overcrowding limits should be enforced instead of cramming on as many people are they could.
But what of the other issues:

-Why did Auckland Transport market the night saying every Aucklander needed a “Game Plan” to get into and out of the city, leaving their car behind and taking trains and buses, assuring people there were additional trains and late night services. There was not a mention in the marketing to expect long delays or realise you might not get a train.
-Yet their planning expected there could be 200,000 people in the CBD
-Why was there no routine crowd control measures such as cordons for people to get in and out of the Ferry terminal when the event was happening around Quay St, and easy egress out of the waterfront areas when people needed to leave or felt claustrophobic?
-What were security staff doing throughout this whole event? I saw a few standing around being staunch but not helpful.
-Why were their no cordons outside the Britomart terminal rather than the rugby scrum that gathered for people trying to get in and why were there no announcements?
-Why was the alarm not rung in people’s heads when trains were packed from early on in the day and it was obvious everyone had heeded the call to go and party and watch the fireworks?
-Why was near anarchy allowed to develop in Queen St and adjacent streets when people flowed on to the road in between the traffic including the over excited Tongan supporters parading up and down the street?
-Why was only Quay St considered to be needed to be closed instead the whole of the waterfront adjacent area in the way Eden Park’s surrounding streets were closed? Queen St should have been off limits to vehicles all night.
-Why did anyone reading this site over the past four years reporting on the weekly breakdowns on the train network not think that trying to push old trains to run a service every 7 minutes to Eden Park was not going to fail in some form especially when there had been a breakdown at Morningside for the last trial run for Eden Park before the RWC?
-People waiting anxiously at Britomart had no idea there were buses also leaving for the park but way up by the Civic. Why weren’t there more buses and the information better known to those waiting for a train on the night?
-Why did the whole of the event occur right at the bottom of Queen St with people trying to get vantage points mixed up with commuters trying to get into a downtown train station?
-Why were people urged to try out the amazing new Queens Wharf where the entertainment and action was when buried in the message and lost of everyone I spoke to was the fact only 12,000 people could get in?
-Why did the expensive TV screens fail and by the way who ended up paying for these?
-Wasn’t the Strand train stop in Parnell recreated as an emergency station out of the immediate waterfront location if something was going wrong? -Why was that brought into service from early on?
-In retrospect should Auckland authorities have agreed to a waterfront stadium and the Government forced their hand?
-Would it have better to wait until Auckland got its long talked about electric trains which at one point were hoped for in time for the RWC – but the tender to even buikld them is still a few weeks away from being signed!
-And doesn’t a CBD link where trains can go in the other direction to Kingsland as well make sense now?

An independent expert familiar with international event management and transport planning needed to conduct a fast overview and deliver today’s report.

Not people who assured the Government and Council last week all contingencies were in hand.

needs more 'socialism'

yep so we can look forward to rolling stoppages, lightning strikes, work to rule and the country being held to ransom

Here's how it's going to look to 95% of people: Government seizes control. No mass chaos. Govt must have done it right! Man those Govt people are smart, I'll vote for them.

But in reality it's like kris says, for a number of reasons there's going to be fuck all people down there from here on in, so whatever the Govt actually do now is irrelevant.

This whole debacle fucks me off no end. The whole Rugby World Cup has been nothing more than a massive dick-swinging campaign from the Government...

Labour should be capitalising on this better than they have been though.!

So the National Party has seized control of Auckland to make sure the trains run on time. Now, where have I heard that promise before....?

Which Government campaigned to get the cup here again?

but neither am I up in arms about the govt stepping in.

you mean the media overreacted? No?

media - time to move on from this on ya front pages (unless you have something new to say that is relevant, not gossip mongering) and print some positive tourny stories of which there must be thousands now.. you know put on a good face for the locals, the visitors and the teams and their supporters - it is meant to be fun after all isn't it?

But Bob, no one buys newspapers with happy stories! Where else are they going to milk doom and gloom from right now?

If a shark carrying M McCully leaped out of the water around Party Central and ate an attractive model, would the Herald front page explode?