What a disappointment it was to hear Auckland’s underground City Rail Link is being pushed back two years.

In a nutshell, the Auditor-General won’t sign off on Auckland Council’s draft 10 year budget because she says there are some funding uncertainties. The Government, meanwhile, is toeing the same line that it won’t pay half the cost of the link until 2020.

So there you have it. The rail link is put back another two years.

What does it mean? It means the country’s largest city, New Zealand’s economic hub and the entry point for hundreds of thousands of tourists every year will continue to limp along.

Access to the city? Difficult. It’s by bus or car or a train system that will get you to the base of the city, but won’t distribute you around it. The traffic? Gnarly. The cost of parking? Off the charts. I paid $35 for a couple of hours last week. The ease of manoeuvring around the city as it stands at the moment? Protracted. It's difficult. Best to avoid if possible.

This is our major city.

So as it stands now, the main tunnelling and construction of the City Rail Link won’t start before 2018 or perhaps 2019. It won’t start until then. The project won’t finish until well into the 2020s.

Yes, it’s a huge project. Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, there are reports that suggest it’s not financially viable, but that depends on how you measure the economic spin-offs of the link.

If you look at how it might influence the daily commute for some people, it doesn’t make sense. If you look at how it might influence economic development, increase commercial land and CBD property values and reignite some spark into a very tired and lacklustre CBD, then the benefits are substantial and long-term.

Like all of the world’s great cities, Auckland needs fluid and fast rail access and it needs to get people into the heart of the city and then quickly move them around once they’re there.

It must be a very frustrating time to be part of Auckland Council. They’re charged with doing what’s right for the city, but they have a central government that doesn’t share their vision and doesn’t see the need for urgency.

It’s that “she’ll be right as she is” attitude. How very Kiwi, how very yesteryear, and how very unfortunate for Auckland.