Last night’s meeting gave Martin Burton of this campaign $435 to print postcards for Capital Connection users to send to Simon Bridges, the current Minister of Transport, urging that the central government subsidize this service so that KiwiRail won’t have an excuse to pull the plug on it, which it is threatening to do on 1 July.

You may think, “Waikanae people can just catch an electric unit to Wellington” which they can: the problem is that without a train from further north, Otaki and Levin commuters are likely to drive their cars to Waikanae station to get a unit too, and thus add to the already bad parking problem there.  This morning we drove up to Otaki (no buses) and had a look at the station.  There must have been about 50 cars parked in the carpark — which ironically the KCDC has expanded in size in the last few years.  If the Capital Connection gets the axe, most of them will probably get driven to Waikanae — and a bad situation will get worse.

Our hunch is that the present government is likely to respond,”look you guys north of Waikanae, we’re spending $700 million on a flash new expressway for you to drive your cars to Wellington instead.”

But it’s worth a try.  Regardless of this, we need some more advocates for a diesel multiple unit service between Waikanae and Palmerston North (see earlier).