Whatever direction you’re travelling, O’Connell Tce in Bowen Hills is a key link in Brisbane’s inner north. At one end, there’s the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital and health precinct; a path through to Victoria Park and the CBD; and a connection to the Enoggera Creek Bikeway. At the other end, there’s a route (albeit patchy) to Breakfast Creek and the Lorres Bonney Riverwalk, as well as through to Teneriffe. O’Connell Tce is also well used as a connection via Brookes St to The Valley.

Whatever happened to the proposed bridge over the rail lines completing the footpath on the southern side of O’Connell Terrace? That connection was supposed to be delivered as part of the State Government’s massive Cross River Rail project, but despite significant work on the rail line beneath O’Connell Tce, there have been no improvements made at street level. On the railway bridge (immediately east of the Lanham St intersection) there is still no footpath at all on the southern side O’Connell Tce, and only an inadequate narrow path on the northern side.

Thanks to one of our followers highlighting the issue on social media, we looked back carefully over the history of the Cross River Rail project documentation, including the change requests since 2017. We can see that a new “proposed bridge structure” was shown in the approved plans from 2017 – see “General Arrangement 11” with the relevant section marked-up below.

It also appears in Project Change Application 4 (2019) in Figure 3.5: Evaluated Exhibition Station Site Plan. In that same document from 2019, Figure 3.7: Exhibition Station Site Plan – Proposed Changes doesn’t show O’Connell Tce; from it might be reasonable to assume that there weren’t any changes proposed to that area at that time.

It’s only by scouring other diagrams in Project Change Application 4 that you might notice the pedestrian bridge vanished from the plans. You needed to carefully compare map 11 from 2017 to map 22 from 2019 to detect the difference. The text of Project Change Application 4 makes no mention of the removal of this important feature.

Representatives from the Brisbane’s Bicycle User Groups attended multiple consultation sessions on change applications covering many aspects of the Cross River Rail project. None of us can recall this particular change being mentioned. If it had been, we would have argued strongly that the active transport aspects of the project be retained and improved – as we did with PA Hospital Bridge connection at Boggo Road, and changes to active transport arrangements at Roma St, Rocklea Station, Fairfield Rd, Annerley Rd, Gregory Tce, the “Grammar Path”, and through Victoria Park.

So, in October 2024, we wrote to the Stakeholder Engagement Team at Cross River Rail, as well as to the Coordinator General (who approves project changes after considering submissions) seeking an explanation for the missing O’Connell Terrace bridge structure.

The reply from Cross River Rail was:

“The proposed bridge structure you referenced in your enquiry on O’Connell Terrace was moved from the Cross River Rail project to the Bowen Hills Priority Development Area (PDA), which was declared by Economic Development Queensland (EDQ) in 2008, came into effect in 2009, and last amended in 2022. This change occurred back in 2019 as it was identified that a wider precinct focus is required when planning for upgrades to O’Connell Terrace.”

Cross River Rail Stakeholder Engagement Team, 15 Oct 2024

They also provided a link to “further details about the Bowen Hills PDA” (which are public available on the internet) and noted that “planned outcomes for the precinct are listed under section 2.7.2, Precinct 2”.

In November 2024, we also received the following response from the Office of the Coordinator General:

So, the Coordinator-General appears to be saying that the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority never proposed any work on bridges or bikeways in Bowen Hills. Which appears to ignore the fact that the “proposed bridge structure” is shown in the plans from 2017 which they approved.

So, in short: widening the O’Connell Tce bridge across the railway line at Bowen Hills was in the project scope for Cross River Rail according to the approved plans from 2017. But it was later quietly dropped by the Delivery Authority without following the change management procedure or advising stakeholders. The Coordinator General (who is responsible for the change management process) does not consider this to be an issue because they deny that the bridge structure was ever proposed—despite approving the drawings which included it.

And what about the suggestion that a “bridge structure” will be implemented as part of the Bowen Hills Priority Development Area? That PDA has been in place for 15 years and has so far not achieved anything for active transport. (And that’s really not how PDA’s work; they just remove some of Brisbane City Council’s assessment processes and enable developers to build higher and faster with even less oversight or public accountability!)

Reading the Bowen Hills PDA, it puts responsibility for development of streets like O’Connell Tce back on Brisbane City Council. But Brisbane City Council don’t have any particular motivation to address O’Connell Tce (despite Carolyn Lister being killed there in 2020) and have no budget for this. Also, as far as we know, Brisbane City Council are not able to do any widening of rail bridges; those are controlled by Queensland Rail… or the delivery authority they have set up to work on the rail corridor… i.e. CROSS RIVER RAIL !!

Finally completing the missing footpath along O’Connell Tce was an important feature of the Cross River Rail project which active transport groups supported and scrapping it is a significant downgrade for active travel. O’Connell Tce is an important route for people walking and cycling to/from the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, and Victoria Park. It also provides walking and cycling access between the hospital precinct and Bowen Hills Station which will remain the closest station for rail passengers on the lines to Cleveland, Ferny Grove, Ipswich, Springwood, Doomben, Shorncliffe, and Brisbane Airport.

So, what can we do now? We currently have a petition to Council asking for a protected bikeway utilising existing street space on O’Connell Tce. (Please sign here if you haven’t already, before the petition closes on Sunday 26 January 2025). We think it’s time to at least use existing public street space to enable the safe and efficient movement of people ahead of on-street car-parking, when there are new car parks nearby at RNA and Herston Hospital with plenty of capacity.