Kerre Woodham: Is anyone surprised at AT's incompetence in planning transport for Elton John?

I am not surprised at all at the complete and utter chaos surrounding the transport to and from Elton John's concert at Mount Smart Stadium tonight. I'm really not.

It's Auckland Transport for heaven's sake.

Anybody who has lived in Auckland who has visited Auckland will know that AT are not terribly good at planning – and a massive piece of understatement - nor are they any good at executing, even the average plans they come up with.

So the council has known for more than a year that Elton John will be performing a sold out show for 40,000 people at Mount Smart this weekend. And what do they do? They shut the trains down, to take advantage of the generally low passenger numbers over the long weekend.

Auckland's rail network will be closed, meaning no trains will be running on Saturday. Yes, probably over any given long weekend, passenger numbers will be low. But not when you have Elton John performing a concert and you need to shift large numbers of people into and out of the region the way other cities seem to do.

So what's AT's advice? To drive, or to walk.

Brilliant.

740 car parks are available for 40,000 people. That's the first problem. Second one is the gates to Mount Smart will open at 5:30pm. Right on rush hour traffic time, right on people heading away for the long weekend time.

Anybody who's had the misfortune to try and drive into or out of Auckland at 5 o'clock on a Friday, we'll know that it's chaos and that it's a nightmare.

So compound that with 40,000 people trying to drive to Elton John and then add torrential rain, the prospect of thunderstorms and the possibility the Harbour Bridge will be closed due to high winds. What have we got? We've got a disaster.

Aucklanders A) don't know how to drive and B) don't know how to drive in the rain.

So perhaps if you want to walk, which was AT’s other brilliant suggestion, if you're staying at Sky City and you want to head to Mount Smart, walking in the torrential rain will take you 2 hours and 12 minutes if you go via Great South Road, you're welcome.

"Oh Kerre, don't be so dramatic they'll put on buses."

An organization that's devoted the past six years to pushing people out of cars and onto trains and buses and bicycles will have buses available, and they do.

But they warned that capacity will be severely limited, so they suggest you plan early and drive or walk.

What crack are they smoking in those offices? Official figures show close to 25,000 people have left Auckland in the past two years. As in who used to live here and then have a road to Damascus experience and think why am I doing this to myself? I'm out of here.

What an absolute embarrassment for the city. My sincere apologies to visitors. Those people who have been looking forward to this concert for a very long time

Ah, look, I'm not surprised at AT’s incompetence. I'm really not, but where you can colour me absolutely shocked is that the people are still intending to go to the concert.

I haven't got a ticket to Elton John, I didn't buy one, but if I had a ticket to Elton John I would probably roll it up, shove a substance in there, sit at home, and listen to a 1973 album and forget about going and seeing him in person.

What an absolute farce.

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