Jodie Johnston and her children Rory, 4, and Rowan, 2, drive or catch the bus from their home in Manurewa, south Auckland.

As Phil Goff announces his bid for Auckland's top job, the city's residents tell us what they want from a new mayor.

Research scientist Jodie Johnston is a committed user of Auckland public transport.

The Manurewa woman has caught the bus or train into her work in the CBD for years, not breaking her stride even when her three children came along.

AUCKLAND TRANSPORT Auckland Transport staff handed out free coffee vouchers on the trains to celebrate hitting 15 million rail passengers a year.

She has plenty of hair-raising tales to tell – including unpleasantness from other train passengers, and her two-year-old being shut in the door of a bus. "My friends think I'm crazy," she says.

But she doesn't like driving in rush hour traffic, she enjoys spending the extra time with her kids, and she believes in educating them that cars are not the only means of getting about.



Now Johnston is being hit by Auckland Transport's proposed changes to the bus routes in her area, axing the morning express services she relies on.



Her only alternative is to catch the train, but that would mean a 15 minute walk at one end and a 30 minute trudge up a hill at the other, all with two pre-schoolers in tow.



"You're carrying two daycare bags, your own work bag, lunch bags, things to entertain the kids on the train or bus," she says.



"I'll probably just use the car more."



Commuting by car can be equally as challenging for her family, though, as they found on a hell trip one morning last week.



"We left just after 7am and it took 70 minutes and we had two screaming children.



"And that's not unusual."



It's these kinds of conundrums that have prompted 34 per cent of Aucklanders to cite better public transport as one of the main things they want from a new mayor, in a large, albeit unscientific, online survey.

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With Labour MP Phil Goff expected announcing his bid for the mayoralty this afternoon, a joint Stuff.co.nz / Neighbourly.co.nz survey asked more than 1600 people what their major concerns were.

Transport was the top issue, closely followed by rates with 31 per cent calling for a lid on their rapid rise.

Another 18 per cent said their biggest worry was access to affordable housing.

In the preferred mayor stakes, Goff was streets ahead with 42 per cent support.



His nearest rivals were former mayor John Banks and broadcaster Paul Henry on 11 per cent, followed by National MP for Papakura Judith Collins on 10 per cent.



As a longtime local MP, Goff says he is well aware of Aucklanders' bugbears.



"We have to meet head on the challenges of unaffordable housing and traffic congestion in Auckland," he writes in his final Sunday Star-Times column before his mayoral announcement.



"These problems undermine our quality of life. We must run the city more efficiently and effectively so we can achieve the best results, doing more with less to curb soaring rates."



READ MORE: Phil Goff – why this is my last column

Whoever takes over Auckland's top job has their work cut out for them in even engaging the city's residents.

Just 36 per cent of of voters turned out at the 2013 election, and nearly 80 per cent of those responding to Fairfax' poll said the merged Auckland Super City had either been a failure or made no difference.

Massey University local government expert Dr Andy Asquith questions this popular perception.

Whatever you might think of incumbent Len Brown he has managed to preside over the unification of eight formerly warring councils, and as a result large infrastructure projects such as the City Rail link are becoming a reality, Asquith says.

"We now have a clear message about what Auckland is and where Auckland's going," he says.

"It hasn't been all perfect and wonderful, no-one would ever expect that, but I think all in all the council so far has done a half decent job because they've had to fight the government tooth and nail all the way.

"Wellington said that there wouldn't be a second harbour crossing and the rail loop wouldn't happen in the CBD.

"Eventually the government caved in."

On the subject of the average 10 per cent rates rise this year, Asquith says to a certain extent Aucklanders must grin and bear it.

He has analysed the candidate profiles from the last two elections, and they all say the same thing.

"It's very popular for people to stand up and say 'let's cut this, let's cut that, let's attack the bureaucrats in the Town Hall'," he says.

"People don't actually know what they're talking about."

The reality is that the vast majority of Auckland's spending is on things it has to provide by law, Asquith says.

Other services such as approving building consents and animal management services are user pays.

"There isn't a lot of slack."

Despite the consistent complaints from Aucklanders about poor public transport and excessive bureaucracy, the numbers appear to be heading in the right direction.

The city's transport agency handed out free coffee vouchers on trains last Thursday to mark annual rail patronage hitting a record 15 million - a rise of 22 per cent in just one year.

A decade ago the city's rail network carried four million passengers a year.

Overall public transport patronage across rail, bus and ferries is now 80 million passenger trips annually, up 10 per cent on 2014.

The same day Auckland Council released an article about its project to align the disparate regulatory environment it inherited from the region's former councils.

It has successfuly reduced 158 bylaws down to just 20.

In doing so it has achieved wins such as being the first local authority to ban under-18s from using sunbeds, and dropping the recommendation that open fires and old wood burners be banned in Auckland