The article by the Kapiti seat holder on the Greater Wellington Regional Council, Penny Gaylor, in this month’s issue of the Otaki Mail (a freebie distributed from Te Horo to Manakau) is below.

GWRC staff are still obsessed by the notion that passengers need toilets for any journey over an hour.  Otherwise, the cost of double tracking and extending the wires will be about $40 million.  That compares with the $330 million the government has committed to extending the Expressway by roughly the same distance.

As we have said before (see the posts) — why not a diesel railcar service that does shuttles between Waikanae and Palmerston North?  That would add a much larger potential passenger base and there would only need to be a couple of them.  Too simple?