Britomart Transport Centre

Auckland Transport Urban rail

An EMU sits at the newly electrified Britomart station.

Location

Auckland CBD

Owned by

Auckland Council

Line(s)

North Island Main Trunk
Newmarket Line

Platforms

Tracks

Construction

Platform levels

Bicycle facilities

Yes

Other information

Station code

BMT / AKL

History

Opened

7 July 2003; 13 years ago

Electrified

25kV AC (2014)

Traffic

7.49 million (2015)

Services

Preceding station	Transdev Auckland	Following station
Terminus	Eastern Line	Orakei toward Manukau
	Onehunga Line	Newmarket toward Onehunga
	Southern Line	Parnell toward Papakura
	Western Line	Parnell (evenings and weekends only) toward Swanson
	Western Line	Newmarket toward Swanson

Heritage New Zealand – Category I

Designated

11 July 1986

Reference no.

101

Britomart Transport Centre is the public transport hub in the central business district of Auckland, New Zealand, and the northern terminus of the North Island Main Trunk railway line. It combines a bus interchange with a railway station in a former Edwardian post office, extended with expansive post-modernist architectural elements. It is at the foot of Queen Street, the main commercial thoroughfare of Auckland city centre, with the main ferry terminal just across Quay Street.

The centre was the result of many design iterations, some of them being substantially larger and including an underground bus terminal and a large underground car park. Political concerns and cost implications meant that those concepts did not proceed. However, at the time of its inception in the early 2000s the centre was still Auckland's largest transport project ever, built to move rail access closer to the city's CBD and help boost Auckland's low usage of public transport. It is one of the few underground railway stations in the world designed for use by diesel trains.

Initially seen as underused and too costly, it is now considered a great success, heading for capacity with the growing uptake of rail commuting. Limitations on further patronage are primarily due to the access tunnel from the east which provides only two rail tracks, and the lack of a through connection via a rail link to the North Shore or to the Western line via an underground tunnel, which would change it into a through station.

Cost over-runs and differing tastes made the centre politically controversial, the design often being described as a large hole in the ground, both literally and figuratively. Despite this and a NZ$204 million price tag, it has won numerous design awards and is internationally recognised for its innovative but heritage-sympathetic architecture. The main source of contention was the relatively great expense of this public transport development in the Auckland Region, where for many decades the focus had been on private vehicle ownership and travel.

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Wikipedia