Fergus Young

Review of Auckland Transport

The Front Line staff I've interacted with across t...

The Front Line staff I've interacted with across the rather broad range of Divisions that AT cover have been largely reasonable to deal with.

In the broader organization though, in terms of Getting Auckland Moving I struggle to convince myself that we are getting anywhere near the best value from our rates overall particularly given what has been achieved in the last couple of decades. Concerns include (but not limited to)...

- The amount of bloated bureaucracy, H&S shenanigans and excessive senior level salaries hamstringing development. It is well past Time to open the books and see where our ratepayer dollars are actually going.

- I don't know if this is largely AT's fault, their contractors or both, but Roadworks are often carried out excruciatingly slowly and the length often runs past even the worst case dates of estimated completion. Often I see equipment that is laying dormant for weeks, otherwise unable to be utilized elsewhere for much of the time. Efficiency I feel could be vastly improved. I'd say it costs a lot more in delays by dragging their heels rather than just getting the job done in a timely manner.

- There have been corruption scandals (Involving Jail sentences) within the organization and this I believe is indicative of a very serious internal culture issue that needs serious looking into and urgent addressing.

It was hoped that in the last Mayoral election that a candidate would pipe up and promise to actually have a good look into this organization and clean Auckland Transport up. Unfortunately not. To be honest, as a ratepayer and commuter, I am utterly exasperated and frustrated at how slow things are getting done in this city and seemingly without any valid reason. The progress towards Transport projects in this city has been nothing short of dismal... Scandalous in fact.