Vocabulary:
Commuter: someone who travels to work
Carriage: a car pulled by a train. It has no engine.
Interchange: a place where you may have to change trains.
Trial: when someone tries a new business project for a short time, this is a trial.
Once: here, “once” means “when”
Run: here, “run” means to operate a business.
Initiative: a new business or community project.
Answers:
The government has approved funding for a trial of a new Auckland-to-Hamilton train service for commuters beginning in March 2020.
The train service will start with four carriages which can carry 150 passengers each way, and increase to a maximum of 200 passengers on five carriages.
The service will initially go from Hamilton and terminate at the Papakura interchange in Auckland. In the future, stops could be added in Te Kauwhata, Pokeno and Tuakau.
The cost of the trial project is about $78.2m and it will last for 5 years. Once the service is established, it will cost about $6m a year to run.
The government will contribute $68.4m and local councils will put in $9.8m.
Politicians who support the initiative say that this will help ease traffic congestion on the road between Hamilton and Auckland, but those who are opposed to it say that 200 people will not make any difference.
Listen to New Zealand news, spoken slowly and clearly, using easy vocabulary.
scott accents cool seems genuine yea i think for nz the best is biketracks, make it more bikefriendly sth like holland or so
The problem is that NZ has a lot more hills and mountains than The Netherlands.
all right then they could subsidize the cost of electric bikes or
provide ones to rent at low cost and put up places where residents
could rent it, like is happening in europe, japan, brazil ive read
yea its been around and its sustainable and healthy yea