While it\u2019s still early days, train usage is nearly double what it was a year ago, meaning foot traffic around its five new hubs has exploded. In turn, the businesses that managed to hold on through years of disruptions are enjoying their best trading in years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Pedestrian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/01a11db6-14e0-75a8-9609-8c5932b32782.webp\")
K’ Road is noticably busier, says business owners. (Image: Chris Schulz)<\/p>\n
\u201cThank fuck\u201d might be the best way to sum up the gratitude and relief expressed by retailers across multiple interviews with The Spinoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s honestly been amazing,\u201d says Elie Assaf, the co-owner of Pitt Street\u2019s Lebanese Grocer. \u201cThe extra demand at lunchtime has definitely put a bit more pressure on our little team, but it\u2019s a very good problem to have \u2026 we have had some of our busiest lunches ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack Young agrees. He opened his Pitt Street bar No.7 in the middle of 2021, enticed by cheap post-Covid rent. \u201cStupid me said, \u2018Let\u2019s do it,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cThe carrot that was the train station kept me going. Somehow we scraped by.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the CRL has opened, Young says his bar\u2019s been \u201crammed\u201d. He\u2019s seen many new faces and has a full house on weekends. \u201cIt\u2019s been pretty mad \u2026 we\u2019ve been flat out,\u201d he says. Soon, renovations will double his floor space, taking advantage of this boom. \u201cIt\u2019s probably a little bit better than I thought it would be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roy Ward says the same thing is happening at his beloved bookstore. Six years ago, The Green Dolphin opened in St Kevin\u2019s Arcade. Ward was full of hope but a series of setbacks knocked it out of him. \u201cWe lived through the renovations there, we lived through the improvements to K Road, we lived through the build of the stations,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ward calls all that upheaval \u201cdisruptive\u201d. \u201cWe\u2019ve never had anything we could call normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Roy Ward, the co-owner of The Green Dolphin Bookstore. (Image: Supplied)<\/p>\n
When The Spinoff spoke to Ward, he was at his counter in his new location next to Crushes, watching over a store filled with parents and kids. It was school holidays and he\u2019d just sold three books: a Little Golden Book, a My First Picture book and a pop-up pictures book.<\/p>\n
\u201cK Road has such a mixed reputation,\u201d Ward says. \u201cBut my point of view has always been [that if] you get people here in numbers, all that other stuff just fades away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Train usage has soared since the CRL opened, data supplied by Auckland Transport confirms. In its first week, Auckland\u2019s rail network recorded 528,007 boardings, 62% up on the week before, and a new record.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Boardings dropped in the second week to 506,000, and again in the third to 466,445 \u2013\u00a0but that\u2019s still up 89% on the same period last year. An AT spokesperson says numbers are expected to increase again around this weekend\u2019s All Blacks game, and when schools return next week.<\/p>\n
All that train usage has led to exactly what businesses want: a surge in foot traffic. A live chart showing pedestrian movements around the city centre shows above-average numbers across almost every site monitored since the CRL opened on September 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n