Billboard gaffe accidentally reveals City Rail Link opening date as 13 September

Early on Thursday morning, Auckland Transport billboards were seen in Auckland city announcing the $5.5 billion project would open on Sunday, 13 September.

An AT spokesperson has told RNZ they were put up in error and only supposed to be displayed after an official announcement at 9am.

"It was a mistake by the billboard provider," they said.

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown and Transport Minister Chris Bishop will be speaking at the now de-railed announcement.

CRL is New Zealand's largest transportation infrastructure project, and construction has been going on for the past 10 years.

Until now, its opening date had been kept tightly under wraps, with Auckland councillor Richard Hills earlier saying people were getting frustrated.

"Is there any way in the next couple of days that it can be announced what month? Because there are a lot of people getting upset, concerned. There's a lot of businesses who just want hope."

CRL open days

Auckland Transport, City Rail Link Limited and KiwiRail will be opening the new stations to the public through a series of 'First Look' events. These will be free, ticketed sessions, but numbers will be limited.

They will be held over consecutive Saturdays in August: 8 August - First Look at Maungawhau, 15 August - First Look at Karanga-a-Hape, 22 August - First Look at Te Waihorotiu.

The free tickets for these will be available one week ahead of each event.

At peak, trains will run every five minutes through the city centre and on average around 10 minutes elsewhere on the network. At off-peak the new lines will operate every 15 minutes throughout the day, including weekends, compared with every 20 minutes at present.