Simon Lewis, Auckland
IT’S not just at the breakdown that the promise of chaos looms for this Saturday’s Australia versus Ireland World Cup Pool C clash.
While Ireland’s coaches work out a way to get the right numbers into rucks without sacrificing the integrity of their robust defensive line and the marauding Wallabies’ back rowers David Pocock and Radicke Samo and their pesky half-backs Will Genia and Quade Cooper, the good burghers of Auckland City Council have problems of their own to solve.
This time it’s a train line rather than a defensive line that needs sorting out before hordes of Aussies and Irish fans start thinking about heading out of the city centre to Eden Park on Saturday evening local time.
You may remember that the first game of the 2011 Rugby World Cup last Friday night was blighted by the sort of transport meltdown that would have made the M50 at rush hour look like a palatable alternative. Auckland’s trains ground to halt and chaos ensued around the city’s waterfront as 200,000 people flooded into the downtown area to witness a spectacular opening ceremony on big screens in official fanzones that were only built to cater for up to 60,000 people. And 60,000 was the number of people who decided to catch the train, either into the city or out to Eden Park, to catch the ceremony and opening game between the All Blacks and Tonga. That’s four times the number of people who would normally use the service on any given day.
The consequences were drastic as 2000 people missed the opening ceremony because of train delays, there were five incidents of emergency stop buttons being pushed on the overcrowded trains and several passengers required medical assistance as the system buckled under the strain.
“Everything we have worked for in the last five years... we were let down,” said Auckland Council transport chairman Mike Lee in a pointed reference to train operating company Veolia. “It was a disgrace.”
As the recriminations continued, officials were on Monday busy trying how best to deal with another bumper crowd heading Eden Park on Saturday when Ireland play the Australians. More than 54,000 tickets have already been sold for the game and Veolia is striving to make sure that meltdown doesn’t happen by having more buses on standby should the trains struggle once again. After all, it was bad enough annoying local taxpayers but imagine the fuss and the negative publicity if overseas visitors are to bear the brunt of the transport chaos this weekend?
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/cr_hz-vSiAE/post.aspx
No comments:
Post a Comment