Leili Golafshani

On Saturday, Leili Golafshani – Labor’s candidate for Jamboree Ward joined Erica, Os, Aaron and their kids, as well as Chris from Brisbane West BUG to experience a typical local shopping trip by bike.

Leili moved to St Lucia in Brisbane from Iran 21 years ago to work at the University, and one of the first things she did was to buy a second hand bicycle. Women weren’t permitted to ride in Iran, so it was an expression of freedom – and Leili used it to travel everywhere across Brisbane, and indeed beyond – including an epic bike ride from Brisbane to Sydney. Unfortunately her bike was stolen a few years ago, and now living in Ellen Grove, getting about by bike was not so easy and Leili never got around to replacing it. She appreciated trying out the Tern e-bike for this ride!

The group rode from Chase the Rider coffee shop in Jindalee, via the Jindalee Boat Ramp and through the lovely back streets along the river before battling the mess that is the construction of the Centenary Bridge duplication and Kooringal Drive bridge replacement projects. Next stop was the Jindalee Home shopping centre and a chance to pick up some tasty treats from the bakery for the kids. They returned to the starting point after a quick look at Jindalee Pool, and the hostile 60kph Yallambee road. Aaron, Os, Erica and Chris all recounted stories of near misses along that road – which is on the Principal Cycle Network Plan but lacking any safe infrastructure despite linking the pool, more shops, and Centenary State High School.

Erica told Leili how she takes the kids to swimming at the pool but sticks to back streets and footpaths. While she’s a confident and experienced cyclist herself, becoming a parent made her more risk averse and if she hadn’t been confident enough as a cyclist anyway, the absence of safe, separated infrastructure to destinations she needs to go would deter her from riding at all.

Similarly, Aaron told how his nephew isn’t allowed to ride to high school in Indooroopilly unaccompanied because of the missing infrastructure between the Centenary Bikeway and Indooroopilly Riverwalk.

Leili strongly supports active transport and believes it just makes sense to enable more people to walk and ride for local trips. She could see how gaps in the cycling network prevent people from riding for transport when they’d like that option.

Cycling is not just for the inner-city! People all over Brisbane are keen to jump on their bikes to make local trips with their families. Thanks Leili for sharing some of what makes Brisbane’s suburbs great, and for working with us on ideas for how it could be even better!