London has recently proved that building cycle superhighways can draw huge numbers of people into the CBD by bicycle, thus decreasing air pollution and giving people healthy, active, convenient, and cheap alternatives to driving or taking crowded public transport. We decided to take a look at how the routes into the Brisbane CBD stack up.

While we certainly don’t have anything that could be described as a cycle superhighway, from some directions there is a route into the city which is largely of very high standard – let down by just a few weak links. These routes include the V1 Veloway from the south east, the Centenary and Bicentennial Bikeway connection from the south west, and the North Brisbane Bikeway from the north east. However it can be a very different story if you want to ride into central Brisbane from another direction.

For the purposes of comparison, we chose points around a 5km radius from King George Square, and from July to September 2016 Belinda rode from each of these points to City Hall. These are her reviews of the routes.

(And yes, we do appreciate that not everyone works in the CBD or lives within 5km. However, that’s still the densest area, and a reasonable place to start.)