The head of Auckland's $4.4 billion City Rail Link says he is unable to give a firm finish date for the project, due to the uncertainty created by Covid-19.
- Video by Nick Monro
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CRL chief executive Dr Sean Sweeney said delays getting resources through Ports of Auckland and border closures made the project even more difficult, and to keep things ticking over City Rail Link Ltd needed a large number of international workers to be allowed through the border this year.
One of the big digging stages of the project is under way at the edge of the central city, near the old Mt Eden train station. Jackhammers breaking up tonnes of rock to be cleared by excavators at what will eventually become the CRL's new Mt Eden station, where the underground link meets with the western train line.
Swarms of fluoro-clad workers can be glimpsed working down one of the $4.4bn project's giant tunnels.
On a quieter corner of the site sits the 130-metre-long Dame Whina Cooper tunnel boring machine (TBM), waiting to start excavation.
"Drilling tunnels underneath Auckland brings a few of those unknowns to a head, but the other major challenge we're working through is Covid-19," Sweeney told Checkpoint.
In 2019 before the virus outbreak, Auckland Council had already funded the project an extra $500 million.
Sweeney has also fronted up to furious business owners, particularly on central Auckland's Albert Street, who were frustrated with disruptions from the project.
Covid-19 has made matters worse.
"We have a lot of people we're still trying to get into the country, there are challenges there. And now we're experiencing that the broader construction industry is starting to have resource shortages because they'd normally supplement with immigration. Those people haven't been able to get into the country. So it's a complicated environment."
The project managed to get 200 workers through the border last year, but Sweeney said that took some hard negotiating with the government.
He said the process had been long and arduous, and they still needed more than 100 more workers to come in over the rest of 2021.
"It generally takes over three months to get someone through. Then you've got quarantine.
"That's a logistical challenge when you might need those people in six weeks' time.
"We've also had impacts from the port disruptions as well, they've thrown another curveball."
Yet another issue has been Auckland's drought and the associated water restrictions. The digging requires a lot of water use.
The project was scheduled for completion in late 2024, but Sweeney said it was speculation to say exactly how the project was tracking toward that date.
"We have instances where they've changed the methodology because we couldn't get the people into the country. How long that took, how much extra that took we then find out as they apply that approach. Those things are happening all the time.
"So we are not ready or able to give a finish date until we're through this period of real uncertainty."
The Dame Whina Cooper TBM is expected to start excavation towards under the city towards Britomart in late April.
Tunnelling project manager Florent Detraux said it had been a long haul to get to this stage.
"After three months of assembly now the TBM is ready to go down to the portal," he said.
Just getting it to the portal is a major task. There are no cranes on site with the capacity to shift the cutter head, so it will be jacked up, shifted onto several trucks and moved around the massive site to the portal.
"Just the jacking operation is one week, and the move will be a few hours," Detraux said.
Once complete, the City Rail Link will form two 3.45km tunnels up to 42m underground.
It will make Britomart more than a dead end, extending the existing rail line underground through to Albert, Vincent, and Pitt streets, crossing underneath Karangahape Rd and the motorway to Symonds St, before rising to the western line at Eden Terrace, where the Mt Eden Station is located.
While the link is expected to save 17 minutes on a train trip from Henderson to the central city, it remains a long journey before Aucklanders know when the project will be completed.