New Year's Eve revellers 'left stranded' in Auckland CBD waiting for public transport

Tuesday, 1 January 2019

'Hundreds' of people waited for buses which never arrived after New Year's Eve celebrations in Auckland, Albany resident Colleen Fairweather said.

Crowds of revellers were 'left stranded' for hours in downtown Auckland on New Year's Eve, waiting for buses home.

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Albany woman Colleen Fairweather said she was one of hundreds milling around Britomart after midnight, waiting for only a handful of buses.

Fairweather had travelled into the CBD by bus to watch the fireworks and thought her trip home would be easy.

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Her route planner app showed there were plenty of buses to the North Shore scheduled, but few arrived, she said.

Instead, there were queues snaking along Quay St and around the corner up Queen St – including older people and children, she said.

An Uber home would have cost her $160 due to surge pricing, so she waited.

Fairweather said only three northbound buses arrived in 90 minutes, each quickly filling with passengers.

It was 2.30am before she got home, she said.

'It was such bad planning. They know people will be out [on New Year's Eve].'

Jamie Killick, from Sandringham, gave up up waiting for a bus after an hour and Ubered home for $60.

'I know there were in fact massive delays … The buses were just disappearing from the board and not coming at all,' he said.

He said that a No. 70 bus scheduled for midnight arrived about 1.30pm, while he was at the bus stop.

Buses and trains were running on a reduced schedule over the holiday period.

On New Year's Eve, Northern Express buses between Britomart and Albany Station were scheduled to run every 15 minutes between midnight and 3am.

Fairweather said she didn't know what had happened to the other buses, and wondered at the time whether they had been caught in city traffic.

She had a 'really good evening' but it had come to a 'frustrating' end, she said.

The Link buses – connecting Auckland's central suburbs – also appear to have stopped running at midnight.

An Auckland Transport spokeswoman said the organisation was not aware of any 'significant delays' to services as people made their way home on Monday night.

Auckland woman Brenda Mills waited 90 minutes for a bus, stuck in a long line 'snaking off in two different directions', she said. She noted similar crowds, including parents with pushchairs, gathered at further stops down the line.

Mills said the experience tainted an otherwise 'great new year in town with scores of fellow Kiwis' - and called for Auckland Transport to acknowledge it had mucked up.

'Otherwise how else will the situation be assessed, and measures put in place to avoid a recurrence?' she asked.

'We decided to take the bus after listening to advisory's to do the same and avoid parking issues. One would have thought that Auckland Transport would have some awareness that all the people they transported to town would need to get home.'

Holiday timetables can be found here.