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Speaker 1: Have a look at the report out in Sydney and

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Speaker 1: to their new metro line. Now, this is the twenty

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Speaker 1: one billion dollar behemoth opened a couple of weeks ago

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Speaker 1: and was going to transform allegedly Sydney public transport, and

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Speaker 1: it seems at first report to be working. And in

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Speaker 1: that is the clue to public transport generally and whether

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Speaker 1: or not it's successful. Now the trouble with transport here,

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Speaker 1: and let's be honest, we're really only talking about a

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Speaker 1: couple of cities i e. Wellington and Auckland that in

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Speaker 1: theory have systems outside of a few random buses. Wellington

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Speaker 1: famously hopeless, Auckland it's hard to tell whether they're far

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Speaker 1: behind or quite possibly even worse. Anyway, the early numbers

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Speaker 1: from Sydney show that there has been a large drop

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Speaker 1: in numbers through the busiest of the heavy rail stations.

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Speaker 1: Now the trick here is the build it and they

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Speaker 1: will come scenario, which is the one that they will

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Speaker 1: claim they use in this country but has never really

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Speaker 1: turned out to be reality. See the buses Famously and

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Speaker 1: Wellington went up the wrong streets, ran out of gas,

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Speaker 1: never turned up in the first place. Now they'll claim

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Speaker 1: all that's fixed now, but the trains are still famous

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Speaker 1: for their problems. Auckland buses have been hit and miss forever.

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Speaker 1: They didn't have drivers for a while, but they too

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Speaker 1: claim they fix that particular problem. I mean, our kids

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Speaker 1: over the years eventually refuse to go on a bus

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Speaker 1: at all for the simple reason they literally never turned

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Speaker 1: up and therefore they would never get to school on time.

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Speaker 1: The trains are permanently canceled still for never ending schedules

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Speaker 1: of maintenance. So the theory has never met the reality,

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Speaker 1: and Sydney where it is working. The question they will

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Speaker 1: need to ask is having a new metro taking people

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Speaker 1: off heavy rail actually solving anything. And if people are

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Speaker 1: leaving cars at home and taking the metro, how many

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Speaker 1: of them actually are there. If you're merely shifting one

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Speaker 1: commuter from a train to another train, that doesn't strike

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Speaker 1: me as a big time solution. If you're moving them

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Speaker 1: out of cars, though, you might be onto something still

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Speaker 1: early days, but four weeks in the falls and train

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Speaker 1: numbers are as high as forty percent. But then their

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Speaker 1: system works, and in that consistency and ensuing reputation for

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Speaker 1: reliability is the real answer to the public transport conundrum.

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Speaker 1: For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast done iHeartRadio