I live in Albany Creek surrounded by Stroads and fast moving traffic. Always very scary. I have had beer bottles thrown at me, rolled coal on etc. I used to live in Fairfield and took fairfield rd to school. Got shouted at and nearly hit as a minor. Seeing such little progress for bike infrastructure always hurts the soul.
It's depressing isn't it. And seeing our Lord Mayor and his council team going out crying about lack of Federal funding for wasteful road widenings that simply make congestion worse, and abuse for active transport users more common is why people need to think very seriously about how they vote in March 2024.
@@ChrisCoxCycling would you rate candidates for their policies on cycling infrastructure in the upcoming election? Or do you not want to get that political?
@rossg2682 It's something I've considered. It is difficult if you get too directly critical (or complimentary) of individual candidates when you're actively involved with an advocacy group that needs to maintain working relationships with whoever gets elected. It's feeling really difficult at the moment given the absolutely appalling rate of delivery for cycling and active transport generally in Brisbane by the Schrinner Council.
How good were Lego trains, honestly? I had so much fun with the old 12V tracks with the centre electrified rails, switches, signals etc. I had an entire room in my parents' house that was my little town (sadly there was no such thing as bike lanes in lego sets then, and even now I think they're pretty hokey...ironic for a Danish company). That fun little tingle when you put your finger across the tracks while it was live... I still had all my tracks and transformer, and when my kids were old enough I got it out to try and make it work. But sadly it didn't. C'est la vie.
In a reply to a similar enquiry BCC wrote me a letter to say its hard but we should be happy because they are spending a record amount on active transport. Primarily two honking big bridges, one of which arguably is not really needed. Meanwhile, more roads for getting people home faster and safer. People in cars that is.
Yeah that's it. As I said in the video, the bridges are fantastic, and the KP Bridge in particular will, when the KP Riverwalk is properly built, will be really valuable for people coming into the city from the inner eastern suburbs. But there's no getting around the fact it's $190 million for 1km of new active transport infrastructure. If the Junction Road bike lanes are being delivered for $500K and building say 1km of bike lane - if you simply extrapolated that to the $190 million, you'd have 380km of new protected bike lanes across Brisbane. The KP Bridge is great, but the bang for buck for rapid roll out of better on road bike lanes connecting missing links across the city is massive.
Great video, Chris. Points out just how absurd the difference in attention active transport is receiving during a cost of living crisis and a climate crisis.
Absolutely. I saw a chart the other day showing how the cost of car repayments per capita is soaring. And yet we keep building our cities to make cars essential - and then have politicians crying crocodile tears about concerns about cost of living? Gimme a break.
Sadiq Khan might have been stretching the truth a bit when he claimed they built 240km of new cycleways. At least 6km of cycleway I know was included in that list was actually constructed in the 90s and was called the Newham Greenway, but was renamed by Khan to Quietway 22 and claimed as new. And some of the "new cycleways" they "built" were even less ambitious than that, being just paint and signs on existing roads. But in fairness, there were some good ones built during this period, they are consistently building more every year and they do now form a mostly connected network. I can cycle from my home to my work 12km away completely on protected cycleways apart from the first and last kilometre which are on quiet backstreets. Even with Government funding slashed by 80%, London still has £80 million to spend over 22/23 on active travel which is about £8/person. The Government funding for Queensland in this video is $328 million over 4 years for about 5 million people which is over $16 per person per year, although I wonder how much of the active travel budget ends up going to "Upgrade vehicle and pedestrian access" projects. Brisbane's budget looks to peak at $12 million in 26/27 or $6 per person. These budgets are not enough to make a significant difference.
I had a thought the other day… maybe silly. But when we resurface roads and put down the green paint, why won’t we put those highway noisy ripple strip things?
It was just a thought even if they were spaced a few metres apart. It would have minimal impact to riders and might just be annoying enough to drivers to actually keep out of the bike lanes and learn better habits. Let’s face it the green paint does zero, nothing, zilch.
@@darrenhaines1 There are some along Bennetts Rd at Norman Park. Well I should say there *were* some since most of them are worn away from drivers who just continue to drift into the bike lane
@@murbul ah yeap I thought I’d seen them somewhere. I was thinking very much like that but just a set of them every 5m or so, just do it consistently and maybe drivers will get the idea. Do it in one single super dangerous spot like that left hand corner on Bennett’s and no wonder they get destroyed really
What is wrong with our government?!! Feels like the rest of the world understands this stuff and yet we are here begging for peanuts... Love the old school lego catalogues and instructions ;)
Great video...much worse in tiny Trinidad & Tobago and many other Caribbean islands. The car industry in collusion with the powers that be, have convinced everyone that they must aspire to car ownership; only poor people would ever ride a bicycle for transport!
I didn't dare look at any Texas city budgets...I guess they don't even pretend to want to encourage active transport. Brisbane claims it does. But does the investment back the words? Find out tonight.
@@ChrisCoxCycling They might not receive much help from the state, but the sad thing is that - from what I've seen online - even cities in Texas are starting to get it.
@@ChrisCoxCycling I've heard that Austin sometimes tries to do good things, but the Texas State DOT has a habit of running roughshod over them. Unless yous were talking about Texas, Qld? 😅
@@ChrisCoxCycling Oh I didn’t mean to compare budgets - budgets are arbitrary - for example Brisbane is planning to spend 325 million (as I hopefully remember) but we’re gonna get 5 km of bike lanes - that’s either a very expensive paint to divide a bike lane or somebody’s relatives are going to design it very beautifully 😉 But would be fun to compare what a state that doesn’t even pretend in the slightest to be green/natural/inclusive for all classes and impairments of ppl is actually doing for other types of transportation cuz there are a lot of states in US that surprisingly are doing a lot 😳
I live in Albany Creek surrounded by Stroads and fast moving traffic. Always very scary. I have had beer bottles thrown at me, rolled coal on etc. I used to live in Fairfield and took fairfield rd to school. Got shouted at and nearly hit as a minor. Seeing such little progress for bike infrastructure always hurts the soul.
It's depressing isn't it. And seeing our Lord Mayor and his council team going out crying about lack of Federal funding for wasteful road widenings that simply make congestion worse, and abuse for active transport users more common is why people need to think very seriously about how they vote in March 2024.
@@ChrisCoxCycling would you rate candidates for their policies on cycling infrastructure in the upcoming election? Or do you not want to get that political?
@rossg2682 It's something I've considered. It is difficult if you get too directly critical (or complimentary) of individual candidates when you're actively involved with an advocacy group that needs to maintain working relationships with whoever gets elected. It's feeling really difficult at the moment given the absolutely appalling rate of delivery for cycling and active transport generally in Brisbane by the Schrinner Council.
0:13 'The train that always runs your way'!🎉
How good were Lego trains, honestly? I had so much fun with the old 12V tracks with the centre electrified rails, switches, signals etc. I had an entire room in my parents' house that was my little town (sadly there was no such thing as bike lanes in lego sets then, and even now I think they're pretty hokey...ironic for a Danish company). That fun little tingle when you put your finger across the tracks while it was live...
I still had all my tracks and transformer, and when my kids were old enough I got it out to try and make it work. But sadly it didn't. C'est la vie.
In a reply to a similar enquiry BCC wrote me a letter to say its hard but we should be happy because they are spending a record amount on active transport. Primarily two honking big bridges, one of which arguably is not really needed. Meanwhile, more roads for getting people home faster and safer. People in cars that is.
Yeah that's it. As I said in the video, the bridges are fantastic, and the KP Bridge in particular will, when the KP Riverwalk is properly built, will be really valuable for people coming into the city from the inner eastern suburbs. But there's no getting around the fact it's $190 million for 1km of new active transport infrastructure.
If the Junction Road bike lanes are being delivered for $500K and building say 1km of bike lane - if you simply extrapolated that to the $190 million, you'd have 380km of new protected bike lanes across Brisbane.
The KP Bridge is great, but the bang for buck for rapid roll out of better on road bike lanes connecting missing links across the city is massive.
65x the budget to roads.
Great video, Chris. Points out just how absurd the difference in attention active transport is receiving during a cost of living crisis and a climate crisis.
Absolutely. I saw a chart the other day showing how the cost of car repayments per capita is soaring. And yet we keep building our cities to make cars essential - and then have politicians crying crocodile tears about concerns about cost of living? Gimme a break.
Sadiq Khan might have been stretching the truth a bit when he claimed they built 240km of new cycleways. At least 6km of cycleway I know was included in that list was actually constructed in the 90s and was called the Newham Greenway, but was renamed by Khan to Quietway 22 and claimed as new. And some of the "new cycleways" they "built" were even less ambitious than that, being just paint and signs on existing roads.
But in fairness, there were some good ones built during this period, they are consistently building more every year and they do now form a mostly connected network. I can cycle from my home to my work 12km away completely on protected cycleways apart from the first and last kilometre which are on quiet backstreets.
Even with Government funding slashed by 80%, London still has £80 million to spend over 22/23 on active travel which is about £8/person. The Government funding for Queensland in this video is $328 million over 4 years for about 5 million people which is over $16 per person per year, although I wonder how much of the active travel budget ends up going to "Upgrade vehicle and pedestrian access" projects. Brisbane's budget looks to peak at $12 million in 26/27 or $6 per person. These budgets are not enough to make a significant difference.
Utopia!
Certainly feels like that!
I had a thought the other day… maybe silly. But when we resurface roads and put down the green paint, why won’t we put those highway noisy ripple strip things?
It is something. And it's so small a thing that Council might even consider it... 😏
They suck to ride across, especially when wet.
It was just a thought even if they were spaced a few metres apart. It would have minimal impact to riders and might just be annoying enough to drivers to actually keep out of the bike lanes and learn better habits. Let’s face it the green paint does zero, nothing, zilch.
@@darrenhaines1 There are some along Bennetts Rd at Norman Park. Well I should say there *were* some since most of them are worn away from drivers who just continue to drift into the bike lane
@@murbul ah yeap I thought I’d seen them somewhere. I was thinking very much like that but just a set of them every 5m or so, just do it consistently and maybe drivers will get the idea. Do it in one single super dangerous spot like that left hand corner on Bennett’s and no wonder they get destroyed really
What is wrong with our government?!! Feels like the rest of the world understands this stuff and yet we are here begging for peanuts... Love the old school lego catalogues and instructions ;)
I felt guilty cutting the train set instruction manual in half!
@@ChrisCoxCycling I didn't want to ask ;) I have some old sets from my childhood that i have such fond memories of
Sadly we need a lot more road deaths to promote public outcry for change, injury just doesn't make the news cycle shock factor cut.
Even deaths don't spark change, sadly. The convenience of motorists is still the most important thing for our political "leaders"
You try so hard to call out the 'good works', but getting infrastructure in Brisbane is like pulling teeth 😢
Yep. I like to give credit where it's due... that's why I give so little credit.
Great video...much worse in tiny Trinidad & Tobago and many other Caribbean islands. The car industry in collusion with the powers that be, have convinced everyone that they must aspire to car ownership; only poor people would ever ride a bicycle for transport!
I reckon there's a bit of that attitude here. They just pretend to "encourage" active and public transport use too.
Oh that comparison is very sad 😅 I wonder if Texas is doing better than Brisbane 🤔
I didn't dare look at any Texas city budgets...I guess they don't even pretend to want to encourage active transport. Brisbane claims it does. But does the investment back the words? Find out tonight.
@@ChrisCoxCycling They might not receive much help from the state, but the sad thing is that - from what I've seen online - even cities in Texas are starting to get it.
@@ChrisCoxCycling I've heard that Austin sometimes tries to do good things, but the Texas State DOT has a habit of running roughshod over them.
Unless yous were talking about Texas, Qld? 😅
Texas is even hotter than Brisbane, for longer. Out in the suburbs of Austin, pretty hostile generally speaking.
@@ChrisCoxCycling Oh I didn’t mean to compare budgets - budgets are arbitrary - for example Brisbane is planning to spend 325 million (as I hopefully remember) but we’re gonna get 5 km of bike lanes - that’s either a very expensive paint to divide a bike lane or somebody’s relatives are going to design it very beautifully 😉 But would be fun to compare what a state that doesn’t even pretend in the slightest to be green/natural/inclusive for all classes and impairments of ppl is actually doing for other types of transportation cuz there are a lot of states in US that surprisingly are doing a lot 😳
Hollywood calls.
I've already got an offer for Barbie 2...
@@ChrisCoxCycling Well, you will have the legs for it.