Long-suffering west Auckland commuters may be able to shave nearly 20 minutes off their journey if the Government's Northwestern Busway goes ahead.
It's currently nicknamed the Northwestern 'carpark' because of its frequent traffic jams.
Newshub took a closer look at a project that's supposed to turn a 50-minute journey into a 32-minute one.
Auckland's Northern Busway was opened by the last Labour Government. Helen Clark did the honour, while alongside her was the Transport Minister at the time, David Parker.
"I opened the first stage of the Northern Busway when I was Minister of Transport a long time ago," Parker told Newshub.
He's now back at the helm 18 years later. During that time, the Northern Busway has become a vital asset for the North Shore with more than 8 million trips every year, saving 2 million hours of sitting in traffic.
He wants to replicate that out west where the traffic is a nightmare.
"I think New Zealanders now accept the proposition that you can't build your way out of congestion with motorways alone," Parker said.
That's what happened when they last upgraded the Northwestern Motorway - more lanes for cars, but none for buses.
"We could have done better as a country in designing a future busway on that corridor in the first place," said Parker.
"It was one of Auckland's biggest transport mistakes that we didn't build it a decade ago when we spent all that money widening the Northwestern at the time," said public transport advocate Matt Lowrie.
The project will see two lanes, separate from the motorway, running from somewhere in the city centre all the way to Westgate - although the actual start and end points haven't been decided. There would be stations along the way but they're still working out where they'd be and where the actual busway would sit in relation to the motorway.
"It crosses over in different parts. In Te Atatū, it's likely to be on the landward side rather than the seaward side. But on other parts it would be on the seaward side. And in some parts, it may end up being in the middle," Parker said.
Lowrie wants it future-proofed.
"How do we make it easy for people to get to the busway. And that's through bus connections, and walking and cycling, and those kinds of things."
The minister is already thinking of a conversion to light rail.
"We embed rails in the road at the time those stations are built so if in the future, light rail is built along the corridor, we don't have to rip it up and start again," Parker said.
But with an election 57 sleeps away, a new Government could do exactly that to his busway dream.
