Howick — site photography supplied by the developer.
East Auckland is in the middle of its biggest transport build in a generation. The AMETI Eastern Busway — a roughly $1.4 billion project connecting Pakūranga and Botany to the rail network at Panmure — is under construction now, with most of the Pakūranga-to-Botany section due to finish by the end of 2026 and the final stretch through Whakamaumahara Guys Reserve completing in late 2027. Howick itself doesn’t get a busway station, but the project has already added a dedicated lane for Howick-bound traffic at the Pakūranga Road intersection, and Half Moon Bay’s ferry terminal was upgraded in 2025 to run new electric ferries. Howick’s own village centre upgrade, by contrast, is stalled. Here’s what’s actually happening, and what it means if you’re looking at a home in Howick.
What’s the single biggest infrastructure project shaping East Auckland right now?
The AMETI Eastern Busway is the one to know. It’s a dedicated, fully separated busway connecting Botany and Pakūranga to Panmure Station, where passengers change onto the rail network into the city and South Auckland. The Panmure-to-Pakūranga section has been running since 2021. The section now under construction — Pakūranga to Botany — is around 5km of dedicated busway with four new stations and 12km of walking and cycling paths alongside it, being delivered by an alliance of Auckland Transport, Fletcher Construction, ACCIONA, AECOM and Jacobs, in partnership with mana whenua. The whole Pakūranga-to-Botany stage carries a price tag of around $1.4 billion.
How far along is it in 2026?
In February 2026, the government (through NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi) and Auckland Council confirmed the last piece of funding needed to finish the job — $101 million for the final stretch through Whakamaumahara Guys Reserve to Botany Town Centre, split roughly 51% central government and 49% council. Early works at the reserve began in March 2026, with the main construction start in July 2026. Auckland Transport says most of the Pakūranga-to-Botany busway will be finished by the end of 2026, with the Guys Reserve section — the last and most complex piece — completing in late 2027. Around 80 workers are on site at peak.
Once it’s all running, Auckland Transport’s own projections have buses departing every 5 to 10 minutes on the busway, journeys to Waitematā Station in the city up to 17 minutes faster from Botany and 8 minutes faster from Pakūranga than today, with onward connections to Sylvia Park, Newmarket, Manukau and Henderson. Patronage is projected at around 18,000 trips a day by 2028, rising toward 24,000 by 2048.
Has this already changed anything for Howick specifically?
Yes — one concrete piece, so far. As part of the busway works, Auckland Transport added an extra traffic lane specifically for Howick-bound traffic at the Pakūranga Road intersection. It opened to traffic on 10 July 2026, with final surfacing and line-marking completed later that month. It’s a small, practical change, but it’s a useful marker of how the project actually touches Howick: the busway itself runs through Pakūranga and Botany rather than Howick village, and Howick residents already connect into it by local bus or a short drive (around 10–11 minutes each way to Pakūranga) — but that connecting route is one of the things this project has already improved.
Howick — site photography supplied by the developer.
What’s happening at Half Moon Bay?
Half Moon Bay, inside Howick, has its own transport story. The ferry pier and bus interchange there were built in 2017 — a $5.9 million project jointly funded by the NZ Transport Agency, the Howick Local Board and Auckland Council — and ferry use grew strongly in the years that followed. More recently, Auckland Transport completed charging infrastructure upgrades at the Half Moon Bay terminal in 2025 to support a new generation of electric ferries: 200-passenger vessels designed by EV Maritime and built at McMullen & Wing’s Auckland yard, running on HamiltonJet propulsion at 23–25 knots, with the first vessel due in late 2025. It’s a genuine, current upgrade to a transport option Howick residents already have on their doorstep, alongside the local bus network.
Is Howick’s village centre being upgraded too?
Not yet, and it’s worth being straightforward about this rather than talking it up. Auckland Transport developed a concept design for Howick’s Picton Street town centre — wider footpaths, safer pedestrian crossings, narrower traffic lanes and slower speeds — costed at around $41 million. In 2022, the Howick Local Board confirmed the full concept was on hold because of cost, with council and Auckland Transport staff instead looking at whether a cheaper, staged version could be delivered. As of the most recent public information, no staged version has been funded or scheduled. If you’re weighing up Howick against other East Auckland suburbs, it’s fairer to treat the village centre upgrade as a longer-term possibility than as a current project.
Is the population around Howick actually growing?
Briefly, yes — that’s part of the backdrop for the transport investment above. The wider Howick Local Board area, which takes in Howick, Pakūranga, Botany, Flat Bush and East Tāmaki, had an estimated population of around 173,200 as of mid-2025. That growth is the context for why East Auckland is getting this level of transport spend, rather than a reason to buy in on its own.
Further reading
What this means if you’re buying in Howick
Put together, the honest picture is this: East Auckland is getting real, currently-under-construction transport investment, not just an announcement, and some of it — the Pakūranga Road lane, the Half Moon Bay ferry electrification — has already landed rather than sitting years away. The busway itself will improve the trip from Pakūranga and Botany into the city once it’s fully open in 2027, and Howick connects into that network at Pakūranga, a short local trip away. Howick’s village centre upgrade is a longer-term prospect, not a funded project today, and it’s worth knowing that going in rather than assuming otherwise.
Park Homes’ Howick development sits at 3 Libby Lane — five architecturally considered homes, three to four bedrooms, 125.5–150m², now selling with completion expected by the end of 2026, from $900k. It’s a boutique release in an established East Auckland neighbourhood, within reach of both the Pakūranga transport links and the Half Moon Bay ferry covered above.