CRL took a century to open - what else is Auckland still waiting on?

Auckland's City Rail Link opened to passengers yesterday, capping a decade of construction, $5.5 billion in spending, and more than a century of talk to become New Zealand’s largest-ever transport infrastructure project.

Trains now run through two brand-new underground stations, Te Waihorotiu and Karanga-a-Hape, and a rebuilt Maungawhau, before continuing out the other side of the city centre rather than terminating at the renamed Waitematā (formerly Britomart) station.

Three new main services — the East-West, South-City and Onehunga-West lines — will reshape how people move across the city.

The project promises to double the number of people able to reach the city centre by public transport within 30 minutes, with flow-on effects for commuters, property values, city-centre businesses, and the wider rail network.

The City Rail Link may be the biggest piece of Auckland’s transport puzzle yet, but it is far from the only one. With the tunnels now open, what’s the next stop for the city’s wider public transport network?

The first new piece of the post-CRL network is already fairly close: Ngākōroa railway station in south Auckland.

The station, between Paerātā and Drury, is planned to open in 2027. Drury and Paerātā stations opened last month, meaning Ngākōroa will complete the trio of new stations serving the rapidly growing area south of Papakura.

Buses already run on dedicated lanes between Panmure and Pakūranga, a stretch of the project that opened in December 2021 and has since carried more than 8.5 million passenger trips. Next up is 5km of fully separated busway between Pakūranga and Botany, complete with four new stations and 12km of dedicated walking and cycleways — currently under construction.

The final section through Whakamaumahara Guys Reserve began works in March and is due to be complete in late 2027.

Once finished, the full 7km busway will let people travel from Botany to Auckland's CBD in a reliable 40 minutes by bus and train and is projected to carry 18,000 passengers a day by 2028, rising to 24,000 by 2048.

Branded Te Ara Hauāuru, this 18km busway with seven stations will eventually run alongside the Northwestern Motorway from Brigham Creek to the city centre. It's being built in three stages and comes with a price tag of at least $4.4 billion.

Stage one covers new stations at Brigham Creek, Westgate and Lincoln Road. The first phase of Westgate station has already opened, in August 2026, with Brigham Creek's station and park and ride in detailed design and construction possible from 2027 if funding lands.

Stage two is the main event: a fully separated, two-way busway from Brigham Creek to Te Atatū, with stations at Royal Road and Te Atatū and a link into the city centre at Newton. Stage three adds stations at Point Chevalier and Western Springs further down the line.

The WX1 bus service already gives the northwest a taste of rapid transit along the motorway in the meantime, and officials say the finished busway would lift State Highway 16's peak capacity by nearly 20%.

An 18km bus rapid transit route linking Auckland Airport, Manukau and Botany hit a milestone this year. Route protection was confirmed in April 2026 after all appeals were resolved, covering 15km under Auckland Transport and NZTA, with the remaining 3km inside the airport's own land.

The route will connect to the Eastern Busway at Botany and the rail network at Puhinui, promising a 34 to 38-minute trip between Botany and the airport on lanes separated from other traffic. The next step, subject to funding, is detailed design and construction.

Also known as the Crosstown corridor, this is a proposed 13km, two-track rail line from Avondale through Wesley and Mt Roskill to Onehunga, linking up with KiwiRail's Southdown freight hub. The corridor has been set aside for rail for 71 years and would be the biggest addition to Auckland's rail network since Britomart opened in 2003.

Primarily designed to let freight bypass the city centre, the route also carries the opportunity to open up a whole new part of the city to rail.

It features in the 30-year Strategic Rail Programme launched by KiwiRail and Auckland Transport at the end of 2023, which listed it as needed within the next 15 to 20 years, and it's also on the Government's fast-track approvals list.

Possible new stations include Wesley, Mt Roskill and Hillsborough. Nothing is locked in, but it's the project planners keep coming back to.

If the City Rail Link took a century to go from idea to opening, the long-mooted Second Harbour Crossing might give it a run for its money. NZTA counts at least 10 major studies in the past 30 years into whether a bridge or tunnel should be next to traverse the Waitemāta Harbour.

The Harbour Bridge has been under pressure almost since the day it opened. The bridge opened with four lanes in 1959 and was so quickly overwhelmed that clip-on lanes had to be bolted onto each side just a decade later, in 1969.

NZTA’s latest study endorsed a tunnel as its preferred option in May, but Cabinet overruled this, saying more work was needed before a final option could be chosen and moving the project out of NZTA's hands and under direct Crown control.

An independent senior responsible officer, recruited internationally and half funded by Auckland Council, will now lead a new detailed business case, due back in 2027 at the earliest, pushing any construction start further into the 2030s.

The existing bridge carries about 170,000 vehicles a day, with the Northern Busway alone accounting for roughly 40% of people crossing the harbour at peak times despite buses taking up a small amount of the road.

The projects on this list represent tens of billions of dollars of investment, and likely decades of waiting.The City Rail Link took a hundred years and outlasted a dozen governments to be built.

Its opening this week is proof the city can eventually follow through on its ambitions — when it will again remains to be seen.