Brisbane City Council Budget 2012 - Bicentennial Bikeway

Due to the Brisbane City Council Budget being lite on detail like most Government budgets it is often hard know what governments (this case councils) are doing. For this reason it is hard to look at the entire budget so it is easier to look at parts of the Budget that can be defined.

In the Budget Papers on page 196 within the Appendix of schedules there is funding for the completion of the Bicentennial Bikeway Upgraded from a shared path to a segregated path. This is an important project that began back in 2009. This is highlighted by the fact that there is currently over 650 cycle movements along the bikeway between 7am - 8 am peak weekday mornings alone. Within the papers 3 projects are listed as for the Bicentennial Bikeway, stage 3, Stage 4 & stage 5. All stages can be seen at this link.

Stage 3 is the current bottle neck. Located between stage 1 & 2  it has meant the reconvergence of pedestrians and cyclists limiting the usefulness of the existing upgrades. It has been a source of problems since the other upgrades occured as large numbers had to mix it up with some pedestrian and cyclists not understanding the concept of a shared path. There is also the fact that it is sandwiched between Coronation Drive and the former Oxleys restaurant & straight after the restaurant there is a small creek to cross. Funding for this section is listed at $6.7 million. Considering how much the other sections have costed to upgrade this figure sounds about right but it should be noted like previous funding towards the Bicentennial it is more than likely half the funds are also coming from the state.

Stage 4 will mean a continuous segregated path between the CBD and Towong. Like stage 3 currently cyclists and pedestrian have to reconvergence. While this has been limiting to corridors capacity it has less of an effect as many users have already exited at the Land St Tunnel. That said it will still be welcome as it should resolve the current problems of people being confused by the change from segregated to shared then back to segregated.  With Funding of stage 4 at only $850 000 it would be safe to say this may only include commencement of works and not the whole section. It may be a project that will run into 2013 financial year.

Stage 5 is quite intriguing. I have never heard of it. It has been given $100 000 and has been placed under the investigation section.

I have to say I am glad for this funding. Once stage 3 & 4 are complete there should be very little complaint in the media of the Bicentennial Bikeway anymore. Most conflict on the bikeway should be removed with capacity for around 2000 cycle movements in each direction per hour. This will mean that a single lane of the Bicentennial Bikeway will have more capacity then a single lane of the Coronations Drive at far less of a cost.

I will leave you with some You Tube footage showing Stage 2 after it was complete
footage is not my own