CRL Time Savings

For a little bit of Friday fun I've modified a rather nifty looking map for the CRL.

My image doesn't quite have the polish of the original but what it does is how how much faster the CRL will make trips for western line users to some of the key existing destination.

So the first image we have is the original which shows the travel times expected post CRL to Aotea Station. From the looks of things the CRL is some 20mins faster than the existing western line, which it is assuming you were previously taking the train to Britomart and then walking up to Aotea Square

In the next image I have modified the original to show the travel time saving each step of the way. As we can see the saving is generally nothing until you get to Mt Eden, from here it depends where you are going.

If you're going to Britomart you can shave 7mins off your trip taking the CRL, If you're going to Newmarket however you're looking at staying in your train seat for another 20mins, longer if you're going to Grafton Station.

Important to note here however is that you can easily change trains at either the new K Road station (depending on Mt Eden Links) or modified Mt Eden Station (Kingsland depending on the final form).

Depending on your luck you may have a seamless transfer and so it will only take another 5mins or so to get to Grafton or Newmarket. And depending on the weather you could always walk. If you have bad luck it could take another 10mins which isn't all that bad.

You also have the option of taking the Newmarket train (the one that doesn't go through the CRL), this means your train will be less frequent but when it comes it will be just as fast as the current train. 

To put this into the context of the existing travel times however, right now Mt Eden to Newmarket takes 5mins, post CRL we have a few options:

• CRL route = 20mins, 400% longer
• Mt Eden fast transfer = 10mins, 200% longer
• Mt Eden slow transfer = 15mins, 300% longer.
• Newmarket train + waiting = 5mins, no change but less frequent.

To finish off, lets not forget the CRL is not about improving travel times to Newmarket, its about improving travel times and capacity to the CBD. This is where the big benefits are and it's also where most of the customers are.