Episode Details

One of the many things that makes New York such a great city is the subway system. It really is a kind of circulatory system for the city, the various lines linking different corners like veins and arteries stretching throughout a body.  

In the five years I lived there, I loved it. I rode it more or less every day, often on multiple journeys. I didn’t have a car. Didn’t need a car. I prided myself on knowing the subway map so well that I’d never need any digital assistance in working out the fastest route to a destination, and I’d always know what side of the carriage the door was gonna open on and position myself accordingly.  

Auckland’s CRL is not New York’s subway. Its 3.5km tunnels are by my calculation, 1/68th of New York’s underground subway network. Nevertheless, the excitement of the last few weeks has reassured me that I’m far from the only one who appreciates a good piece of mass transit infrastructure. Finally, we’ve all thought, New Zealand can have big city things too.  

On Tuesday after school, I packed the boys up and gave them an ultimatum. Jobs with me in the backyard or a test ride on the CRL? It was an easy decision. 

I’d already had a look at Karanga-a-hape station, but I figured that as a family we’d wait until the early hype had passed before riding the link for a real-life test. By the time we’d swiped on, the train was filling up with high school kids and commuters making their way home for the evening.  

“How long until we go underground?” the nine-year-old kept asking.  

“Are we underground yet?”  

“Is this underground?”  

Although most of it was lost on him, I tried to use the train map to illustrate what had changed. I reckon this is the thing those of us who don’t live in Auckland perhaps still don’t properly appreciate: you have to understand how inconvenient the old system was to fully appreciate the new one. When you ride the train and it goes through the CRL, it just feels like a logical journey. Because it is. The old way of doing things meant heaps of commuters had to effectively overshoot their destination, then muck around waiting to be re-routed before heading back in the general direction from where they’d come.  

The nine-year-old is at the age and stage where he’s obsessed with the biggest and best. “We’re at the deepest train station in the whole of New Zealand,” I said, as we pulled up to Karanga-a-hape.  

“REALLY?!” he said.  

“LIKE... ACTUALLY?” 

The 18-month-old was less impressed with the tunnel and more interested in staring at the commuting masses, refusing to sit on my lap and insisting he had his own seat.  

We got out at Waitematā, had a snack, tagged back on and went home. The boys loved it. It killed an hour or so. But I couldn’t help but think how from a commuter’s perspective, or that of anyone who’s spent time in a big, developed city overseas, the whole thing is actually pretty unremarkable.  

And to a certain extent, I suppose, that’s the entire point. 

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