Waka Kotahi boss hits back at ‘inhouse’ critic
The chair of Waka Kotahi-NZTA, Sir Brian Roche, said he was ‘‘extremely disappointed’’ in remarks made by fellow board member Patrick Reynolds about Te Huia, the new train between Auckland and Hamilton, which received nearly $80 million from the organisation.
Reynolds said in a tweet that the train represented the ‘‘worst of both worlds’’ and said it would be ‘‘[v]ery hard to see how it will attract much ridership’’, until problems with the speed of the trains were fixed. He’s since apologised for the remarks.
Transport Minister Michael Wood said that ‘‘Mr Reynolds has graciously issued an apology for making those comments – I don’t agree with them’’.
‘‘Clearly Te Huia is a service which is a startup service, and we’re going to look to make improvements to it as it moves forward,’’ Wood said.
Wood, who is responsible for appointing people to the Waka Kotahi board, said he accepted Reynolds’ apology and would be leaving the matter there.
Roche said Reynolds had let the board down. ‘‘He has apologised – it’s not the way the board operates – we act collectively irrespective of our personal views. He let himself down, and he let the board down,’’ Roche said. Reynolds had been active on social media ahead of being appointed to the NZTA board in 2019. His account disappeared around the time he was appointed to the board. The account was later reactivated. Roche said there was a protocol around how Reynolds would use social media, and ‘‘he broke that protocol’’.
The train opened this month, running two return services between Hamilton and Auckland each weekday.
But critics have noted it takes far too long to be a serious commuter service. A journey on Te Huia to Auckland would take about 98 minutes to get from Hamilton to Papakura.
People wanting to get to the Auckland CBD would then need to get on another train to Britomart, taking about 50 minutes.
Replying to another tweet about the train, Reynolds wrote: ‘‘Te Huia’s current pattern is both slow + poor coverage, worst of both worlds, is one-way effectively; no way to go AKL-HAM in a day, blows through stations it should serve,’’ Reynolds said.
The tweet has since been deleted.