$54 million waste of money? The Indooroopilly Bikeway saga | COME RIDE WITH CHRIS!

Want to come for a ride with me? Come along to the Indooroopilly Bikeway Community Ride, hosted by Michael Berkman, MP for Maiwar, on Saturday April 1, 2023 at 8.20am:
www.michaelber...
In 2016, the Brisbane City Council proposed building the Indooroopilly Bikeway, providing a much-needed connection between the Centenary Bikeway and the University of Queensland Bikeway at St Lucia.
The University is the second biggest commuting destination in Brisbane after the CBD, and many students and staff ride there. However, getting there from the western suburbs was a choice of a treacherous ride along Radnor Street and Lambert Road, or ride an extra 4-5km to go via the inner western suburb of Toowong.
The Indooroopilly Riverwalk was the first stage built, a complex in-river solution needing to withstand the force of Brisbane's river in flood, a test it withstood in 2022. However, despite urging from the local community and cycling advocates like myself, Council did not proceed with planning the other sections of the Indooroopilly Bikeway while they undertook construction of the Riverwalk.
Now, two years after opening, both ends of the Indooroopilly Bikeway are seeing more cycling traffic, but they are not up to scratch.

[@markjones8387]

Great assessment Chris. Let's see if during Centenary Hwy bridge works people get out of cars and start using some of the great cycle infrastructure we have.

[@Artz22]

Love your advocacy for better options for brisbane! Thanks Mate!

[@evantuohy7536]

Nailed it - I've had many conversations with people who would walk/ride/scoot places if it wasnt for those dangerous on road sections of nearly every route - connected contiguous peopleways are whats needed.

[@Slogfester]

Great video, Chris. See you Saturday.

[@garylovesbeer]

Hey, great video, as usual. For people who don't know the areas as intimately as you obviously do is there any chance of throwing thumbnail map on the video in a top corner? Openmaps one would be great. Thanks. Please keep up the stong cycle centric advocacy. The city unknowingly apprecicates it.

[@leomcmonagle4845]

As a UQ student (studying urban planning) living in Chapel Hill who went to one of the schools in the area, I am very familiar with all the issues you raised and think this is a great video addressing all the concerns. Currently, my main mode of transport to uni is the bus which is .... ok, it only comes every hour and can take a long time to get through the school traffic in the mornings, plus due to the circular loop of the route it takes much longer getting home or more often my only option is to change buses at Indooroopilly Shops. I'd love to ride to and from uni but as someone who has never cycled on main roads before I'm certainly not keen on the idea of riding through that intersection on Witton Road (even driving through there makes me nervous) or on Lambert road. Hopefully, I can make it to the group ride but I currently only have a push scooter so I might be a bit slow 😂

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

It'd be great for you to come along. We'll be going at a slow pace, it's intended to be all inclusive. I know what you mean about bus transport too. My other big bold dream is to see a south west busway along the Centenary Motorway, which then turns east at Indooroopilly, under the shopping centre and train station (with integrated bus station) and under St Lucia to join the UQ Lakes metro station. Imagine that? Being able to get on a bus at Chapel Hill, straight to UQ via a tunnel. Much faster than driving, plus the ability to stay on the bus and go to south bank, CBD, RBWH etc. We can but dream, huh?

[@Nhkg17]

A new bike? Gravel is great for the city rides. I bought it for going out of town and now I use it for everything, including commuting to work. It's just a shame I can't leave it outside shops because sooner or later someone would steal it...

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

I've had it a couple of years now. Great bike!

[@andresgizmos1271]

Completely agree. Im a student and commute from Forest Lake to UQ via centenary bikeway, and the connection to Indooroopilly riverwalk is very confusing and dangerous during peak times.

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

It is. Out of interest, which way do you prefer to go from the Centenary Bikeway to the riverwalk?

[@andresgizmos1271]

@@ChrisCoxCycling I go along Witton Rd, then riverwalk, then Lambert Rd riding on the road. Sometimes I use the footpath/seperated bikeway on Hillside terrance when its not too congested. I find it annoying how you have to cross a four way intersection to stay on Witton road ;(

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

Yes the Kate Street intersection is terrible, whether driving, riding or especially walking. It really needs traffic lights

[@thermami]

I knew Witton Rd was bad but I had no idea about the situation on the other side of the Riverwalk. Pretty depressing that you can have that much pedestrian and bike movement and yet the council will just sit back and do so little for years. Reminds me a bit of Old Logan Rd. You have this enormous 2 lane road with barely any parked cars and it doesn't even look like they considered it as an alternative when the Centenary Bikeway to Springfield was cut.

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

It is frustrating how little forward planning there seems to be regarding cycling and walking. I remember back in about 2018 I was arguing with Council to drop the speed limit on Lambert Road which features heavily in this video from 60kph to 50kph. Pedestrian and cycle traffic then was still very high. The local councillor, James Mackay, held a round table about the issue this week and honestly, it was the best community consultation session I've attended. Neighbours, school reps, cycling advocates, students, town planners, lots of different community stakeholders represented and listening to eachother. For the first time I'm confident that there will be a good outcome. As for the Springfield Centenary Bikeway...ugh, don't mention the war. I'm still pushing that barrow too. But you're 100% right, axing the bikeway and then not doing any alternative planning was negligent. But given it was the Newman State Government and Pisasale Ipswich City Council, it's not terribly surprising...

[@maxgadd]

totally agree

[@rossg2682]

It’s a pity Michael’s bike ride is on the same weekend as the active travel expo for the Brisbane Cycling festival. Else I would have come along.

[@wozm9924]

One might have assumed that the university educated individuals responsible for town planning would possibly have noted such missing links and therefore made the leap that a lack of connecting infrastructure may potentially result in a discouraging effect on the risk adverse. Having come off second best with a direction challenged little old lady once myself, I can't blame anyone for being less than enthusiastic when it comes to mixing it up with cars on a bicycle. Nice article once again Chris. Definitely think there should be a consulting position opened for you at Council.

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

Thanks for the kind words, Woz. The shame is Council does have a lot of well informed people within their infrastructure and traffic ranks, but they are out ranked and out numbered by the people stuck in the 1970s paradigm of MOAR ROADS! Although also fair to say when it comes to the road network forward thinking and planning is not the strong suit of this monolithic local government administration. It's why I caution people from other cities with smaller councils who wish they had a bigger, amalgamated council - be careful what you wish for. A bigger council just means bigger bureaucracy.

[@Ladadadada]

@@ChrisCoxCycling My experience is that the engineers and architects are pretty well informed and the plans that the councils produce look great and often do connect up existing infrastructure in efficient ways, but where it falls down is funding. When road building projects overrun their budgets the cycleway projects get delayed by another year. Cycling is just at the bottom of the pecking order and the stars have to align for any money to still be left. Not to be too negative, I am noticing a small shift in those priorities and some cycling infrastructure is finally getting built. Let's hope it snowballs.

[@jacklalalaful]

Great video, maybe in 20 years the good infrastructure will actually be connected.

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

Geez I hope it's not 20 years!!! We've got an Olympics in less than a decade - I would hope we would have a decent active transport network in the inner-15km of the city by then, given the level of international tourism that will simply expect that to exist.

[@jacklalalaful]

@@ChrisCoxCycling I am of the sad opinion that it will take a couple of squished Olympians by cars for anything to actually change

[@davidcrabbe9710]

Hi Chris, this experience is mirrored to the North, where the otherwise excellent Kendron Brook cycleway ends abruptly at Shaw Rd. It's disconnected from the North Brisbane Bikeway, and the gap seems to be filled with NIMBYs who are objecting to Dickson St being converted. Coming from Perth, I'd say Brisbane is years behind providing commuter cycling infrastructure.

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

Yeah the North Brisbane Bikeway saga is depressing. I've got a few videos about that.

[@davidcrabbe9710]

@@ChrisCoxCycling I'll go check them out given this is my new home. :)

[@nitramluap]

The 'UQ Bikeway at St Lucia'... um, what bikeway, lolz. There is a narrow shared path next to the golf course and if you ride on the road you have to contend with speeding drivers and, in the morning, thousands of MAMILs going around in circles. It's most unpleasant if you're just trying to get from A to B.

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

Fair. That first part winding up the hill past the golf course is inadequate - standard BCC shared path design circa 2010. Ride on the path and have people walking their dogs give you a serve. Ride on the road and have drivers give you a serve. Can't win really.

[@nitramluap]

@@ChrisCoxCycling No, it's less than ideal both ways! lolz

[@mcdiskett2003]

any improvement yet?

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

Into year 3 of "planning" for the first connection from the Centenary Bikeway to the Riverwalk. So, um, no.

[@daveyoung7518]

Good to find a cycling video that is not completely self-centred. How dare parents park vehicles when transporting children.

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

Well yeah, if they put the kids who are walking or riding to school at risk, indeed how dare they... safe active travel infrastructure should always be preferenced over parking.

[@philipstevenson5166]

i though the river thing was a footpath from the station to the private school. hence no connections beyond.

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

No, it's a cycleway and pedestrian path - $52 million for a footpath from the private school to the train station would not be good use of taxpayer funding right?

[@philipstevenson5166]

ah an idealist. but money buys influence gets money.

[@froggy0162]

There’s not much going for life in Canberra and I was pretty happy to finally move away from it, but it did at least have a great cycle way network (and shit hot mountain bike trails). In Hobart these days and cycling to work here is really really bad…

[@ChrisCoxCycling]

Yeah I visited Canberra in November and was pretty impressed with what they're doing in the inner city area north of the lake. Brisbane hasn't seemed to finish anything new since 2021-22.