Oops, sorry to be a little late with this weekly digest covering the week ending the 29th of December 2019.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas, and were able to spend time with the people who are important in your life. Last year we put together our Christmas wishlist of our most wanted projects for 2019. We can report mixed progress:

We’re delighted that the Grammar Pathway is now well lit; that it’s possible to ride from the Goodwill Bridge to the Gabba on a protected cycleway; and that the North Brisbane Bikeway is heading north and almost complete as far as Wooloowin.

We’ve also seen good progress on casual bike parking at railway stations, and Queensland Rail have committed to providing secure bike parking cages as part of all new Park n Ride projects and station upgrades. Meanwhile, hundreds of banana bar pinch point hazards around the suburbs have been replaced with safer path-termination treatments.

We’re excitedly looking forward to construction starting on the Indooroopilly Bikeway and separated cycleway over the Victoria Bridge.

Sadly, a safe Vulture St and protected bikeway along Sylvan Rd seem as distant as ever, and Viola Place still leads to a locked gate.

There are some bright lights ahead for 2020:

• Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has thrown his support behind 5 new green bridges for Brisbane – including from the CBD to Kangaroo Point which has a business case and a preferred location identified.
• And ahead of the March election, Labor’s Lord Mayoral Candidate Patrick Condren has announce his team’s support for a grid of protected bikeways in the CBD.
• With Kath Angus, Lord Mayoral candidate for the Greens also on board, we hope the LNP will step up in the New Year with their plans to make our city centre bicycle friendly.

Here’s to a happy Christmas and a healthy, active New Year!

Exploring Brisbane’s Bikeways

We’ve spent some quality time on the bike over the Christmas period, exploring and reviewing Brisbane’s bikeways. So if you’re looking for somewhere to ride off the Christmas calories, but want don’t want to have to mix with motor vehicle traffic here are a few ideas:

The south side of Brisbane has two of our city’s best, in the V1 Veloway and the Centenary Bikeway. But the east-west connections are essentially missing. Here’s a route connecting the major (and a few more obscure) bikeways on the south side, including the Bulimba Creek Bikeway, V1 Veloway, Kangaroo Point Bikeway, Goodwill Bridge, Bicentennial Bikeway, Centenary Cycleway, Carole-Wacol Bikeway, Ipswich Motorway Cycleway, Salisbury Bikeway, Lophostemon Track, Tarragindi Bikeway, Norman Creek Greenway, and Lytton Rd Cycleway.

There are more bikeways to explore: in the west, check out the cool and shady bikeways along Ithaca Creek and Enoggera Creek. This post also takes us under and over the Gateway Bridge, along the new Kingsford Smith Drive Bikeway, and via a “secret” path to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

Belinda’s third Brisbane Bikeway Bonanza ride takes us north to check out the Gateway North Bikeway, Deagon Deviation Cycleway, Brighton/Sandgate Foreshore Path, Sandgate Bikeway, Cabbage Tree Creek Bikeway, Downfall Creek Bikeway, Jim Soorley Bikeway, and finally a short section of the Kedron Brook Bikeway (the rest of which will have to wait for another day).

And of course we couldn’t close our series of posts exploring Brisbane’s Bikeways without including the Kedron Brook Bikeway. Our fourth review takes us back to the north side to check out the Brisbane Airport Bikeway, Kedron Brook Bikeway, and (heading into Moreton Bay Regional Council area) the Samford Bikeway.

Meanwhile, at the southern edge of the Brisbane City Council area, TMR have announced plans to install on-road bike lanes on Logan Rd between the Gateway Motorway at Eight Mile Plains and Kingston Rd, Underwood.

It’s actually a little ironic that this comes only after an extension to the Veloway has been announced as part of the M1 Logan Upgrade Project. This section of Logan Rd has been a nasty but unavoidable stretch for years, and is only now finally being improved just as an alternative for many longer cycle trips is on the horizon. Still, we’re very happy for the safety improvements, which will be important in the interim and for local traffic.

The project will remove a number of dangerous existing pinch points and remove informal parking from the shoulder so that people travelling by bike will no longer have to merge out into 80kph traffic. These are important and long-overdue safety measures which we support, while at the same time recognising that on-road cycle lanes are only of limited use in attracting more people to ride. There is a high proportion of the population who will still not consider cycling so close to high-speed traffic.

Brisbane South BUG, East BUG Inc., and Bicycle Queensland have all been involved in conversations with TMR on this project – with suggestions for improvements, and to provide our support. Detailed design will commence in early 2020, with project construction anticipated from March-September 2020.

In other news this week

We learned that a draft international road safety declaration recommends 30kph speed limits in urban areas as part of a strategy to shift toward cleaner, safer and more affordable modes of transport, incorporating higher levels of physical activity such as walking, cycling and using public transit.

Unfortunately, it seem likely that Australia will be represented at the upcoming Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety by National Party leader Michael McCormack who doesn’t like the idea of cities and towns where children can safely walk or cycle to school, where elderly people can comfortably cross the road to reach the bus stop, where wildlife and escaped pets have a chance of survival if they venture onto the road, and where everyone has the opportunity to chose a healthy active lifestyle. Cleaner air, and quieter, safer, friendlier neighbourhoods sound like a dystopian “nanny state” to Mr McCormack. (Maybe he would prefer that Nanny be isolated at home?)

Even if Australia doesn’t sign the non-binding declaration, we hope the message will get through to state governments who are ultimately responsible for speed limits, road safety, and the health and environmental costs of not addressing the issues.