New bus lines for East Auckland and Eastern Busway
Bus reform is coming to East Auckland. We have New New Network For East Auckland incoming with the Eastern Busway coming next year. Here's a review of the upcoming changes and possible improvements.
The Certifiably Good
From December 2026, routes 711, 733, 734 and 735 will improve frequencies, with all services running at least every 30 minutes at all times. Currently the 711 runs hourly off-peak with the 733, 734 and 735 running hourly on weekends.
This is an integral baseline improvement that will make public transport at least usable for most people in East Auckland as a second resort option. IMO hourly buses are unusable even as a last resort. It's unclear whether operating spans are being extended but it would also be ideal for services to run earlier in the morning and later in the evening as some services like the 711 finish at ~7.30pm.
Hourly buses remain a huge bugbear of mine throughout Auckland, and so this is an excellent although essential improvement. Frequent route 35 which currently connects Botany and Manukau will also run every 30 minutes at all times when not running every 15 minutes. This is also a nice good bump - it should also be criminal to have a frequent every-15-minute service go down to hourly off-peak.
From April 2026, a new 37 route launches between Manurewa, Clendon, Puhinui Station and Highbrook/East Tamaki. To avoid duplication with the 37, the 352 will shift to providing a more direct connection from Flatbush and Ormiston to Highbrook.
Finally this part of East Auckland will have a good frequent bus option. It also runs to Wiri which, like East Tamaki, has seen a lot of local employment growth. As the emerging local employment centre for East Auckland, it's vital that there are good links between the eastern suburbs and Highbrook. It'll be interesting to see if this route works though. This is bad geography and geometry for transit. There's definitely a chance it'll just become a lowly-used bus that get's defunded in a few years.
It'll be a slow burn though as it'll only really connect to the rest of the buses in East Auckland when the Eastern Busway opens. Presumably this also explains why the 734 and 735 buses have been extended to terminate at Burswood (Pohatu) busway station.
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On watch
Evening frequency improvements to route 70 will be very good. Ideally this means 6 buses per hour at all times - much like the NX1 off peak.
Meanwhile - it'll be fascinating to see if the AirportLink extension - scheduled to happen in FY2028/2029 - will work patronage wise. Every 10 minutes 4.30am to 1am in that corridor will be insane given the landuse. It'll be interesting to see if they short-run the service or reduce the span and frequency given its already lower patronage.
They'll also need to have good interchange opportunities, shelters, and bus priority at those intersections on Te Irirangi Drive. This is the future corridor for the Airport to Botany bus rapid transit and this will be a good test to see if there's actual travel demand which can justify that sort of capital investment.
Improvements
Queens Rd deviation
One controversial part of the Eastern Busway project that's somewhat lost to history was that the Panmure Business Association fought to keep buses in their town centre as the busway strips them out. That's presumably the reason why the 711/712 and 352 still run through Queens Rd rather than through the busway.
This is irritating normally, but absolutely infuriating during rush hour when traffic through the town centre can massively slow down services. I imagine the majority of people on those buses are also heading east/west and won't benefit from the detour.
Seems obvious that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. A shorter coverage service or extending another bus – perhaps the 751 – would be the better option than taking people from Bucklands Beach or Howick on the long way around.
Sylvia Park-SEART-Pakuranga gap and network enhancements
Other improvements are well canvassed in my post: Optimising the Eastern Busway.
These include better linking Sylvia Park-SEART-Pakuranga and also optimising the entire structure of the East Auckland bus network around the busway itself.
https://ninja-pigeon.pikapod.net/content/files/2026/08/optimising-the-eastern-busway.html
