Auckland's Western Line: Walking and cycling catchments

How can active transport connections maximise City Rail Link benefits

City Rail Link successfully ran a test train last month on the 3.45km line under central Auckland, ahead of its 2026 launch. CRL doubles central network capacity, providing two new stations, Karanga-a-Hape uptown and Te Waihorotiu midtown. It redevelops the waterfront Waitematā (Britomart) terminal as a through station and Maungawhau (Mt Eden) as a junction directly connecting Western Line to the city.

The fourteen Western Line’s stations will immediately see substantial time savings from CRL. Peak public transport from Henderson to Te Waihorotiu Station on Wellesley St in central Auckland reduces from 59 to 35 minutes with similar time savings across the line.¹

Generating walk and cycle catchments

Direct travel to the city encourages multimodal transport. To analyse walking and cycling potential of the Western Line, catchment analysis tool R5 calculates pathways that people take to a station and builds boundaries showing how far they can travel in a certain timeframe.² It accounts for uphill sections using digital elevation from LINZ and uses road and pathway data from OpenStreetMap.³

Across the Western Line, 95,900 people and 30.2 km² are within 15 minutes’ walk, with 166,900 and 54.7 km² within 15 minutes’ walk or cycle.⁴ This post is previews an online tool I’m releasing soon to explore scenarios by walk or cycle, typical travel speeds and time thresholds.⁵

Understanding population density

We have detailed Statistical Area 1 & 2 population counts from the 2023 Census. This includes area for density and 2018 and 2013 data, showing 5 and 10-year growth.⁶ SA2 boundaries reflect “communities that interact together socially and economically”, while SA1 are designed to have 100-200 residents, for geographically detailed analysis. CRL formally started in 2013, so Census shows how the city has grown in that time.⁷ The map below shows population and growth for SA2s near the Western Line.⁸

Combining catchments with population

For cycling and walking, the finer detail of the Statistical Area 1 gives more insight. Applying a 15-minute walk and cycle catchments and overlaying the SA1 data, shows the population that can potentially be served.

The town centre has few residents but there are pockets of density further away. With the right infrastructure and facilities, cycling increases station catchment to 14,600 people and 6.5 km² vs 4400 people and 2.5 km² walking, as shown by the black dashed and solid boundaries.

New Lynn, the major transport hub on the Western Line, shows a similar development pattern to Henderson, with significant proportions of the area close to the station having a low density. The 15-minute walk catchment of New Lynn station are 7500 people and 2.7 km², increased to 24,100 and 7.1 km² with cycling.

I’ll be releasing the online tool soon, so keep an eye out. I’m keen to hear about other projects using this data to analyse the combined potential of active transport and rail.

1. As far as I can tell, a full listing of projected travel times is not published in one place but can be interpolated from existing travel times, CRL FAQs, and Auckland Transport.

2. This assumes a 5 km/h walking speed and 15 km/h cycling speed. The online tool also shows 4 km/h walking catchments and 12 km/h cycling catchments.

3. The open data produced by New Zealand Government organisations and used here is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution 4.0 International.

4. It also allows specifying the maximum level of travel stress while biking, which means that certain busy roads can be excluded from routing.

5. This and subsequent population figures calculate the proportion of the SA1 land area covered and assumes that the population is evenly distributed.

6. This uses multiple data sources, including rail data from LINZ and Kiwirail.

7. Government support was initially announced in 2013, and was brought forward in 2016, based on strong rail passenger and population growth.

8. The Western Line is accessible to and used by people living much more widely than these SA2s via bus links, park & ride and active transport, but I’ve just shown the adjacent and near-adjacent SA2s.