Tamworth resident.

Good to hear from you. You’d think this was obvious but the roads lobby has a lot of momentum.

But like I said…I am most likely completly wrong on this…honestly i am only writing this becaus i am incredably bored.

I hope you find more interesting things to do then. On the bridge, I’ve seen a claim that building a bridge was somehow related to development in the area at some point in the past.

The issue as I see it is that building more roads encourages more people to travel by car. So a new road helps for a while, then it fulls up. Rather create real alternatives like safe bike paths, better public transport and schools, shops etc. closer to where people live. This has worked pretty well in cities like Paris.

P.S Thanks for this website, it has helped me alot with my Assignment which is due tommorow ( don’t worry, I will make sure I put you in my bibliography )
P.P.S sorr about my spelling…which I very obviousaly fail at epicaly

cyas!

I have to agree on the bus trip times. It takes me up to 1 hr to get from Kenmore to UQ in the morning. Last year, before the upgrade of Moggill Rd before Kenmore it would _only_ take around 40min. The bus trip to the city from Kenmore is similarly worse this year over last (and takes almost as long as the UQ trip), and there’s little point catching the Rocket services along the Western Freeway; it’s no faster than going via Toowong and Coronation Drive.

Putting a school in Bellbowrie specifically is a great idea. That suburb already is home to the only skate park west of Paddington, and it has a very nice community feel. Putting more services for young people out there would make it accessible to people in Kenmore as well as further west. As for school busses, putting a school in Bellbowrie would also vastly reduce the need for a lot of traffic passing through Kenmore/Chapel Hill. More than a few people I went to school with in Indooroopilly made the trip from Karana Downs or Moggill every day, because there was no local alternative! Furthermore, considering how the Pullenvale Ward office is chartering Southern Cross to run a bus out from Karana Downs/Mt. Crosby/Karalee to Indooroopilly, having a local school would mean the charter could simply be a loop to/from the school. Even if it was simply one of the specialist Queensland Academies, I still see enormous social benefits.

Bellbowrie is of course on the 444 bus route. Regarding the light rail plan, for this area I envision that we could use it to replace some of the bus routes. For example, the plan proposes the U.Q. Line to go from Kenmore South through Indooroopilly, connecting to the train station, then through to St. Lucia. This is basically the same route taken by the 432 bus. Having the line go to Indooroopilly train station would be of significant benefit, since the U.Q.’s Ipswich campus itself is very accessible by train, and together with integrated ticketing, would make it a lot easier for students to get to classes at the different campii. The Western Line is also proposed to connect with Milton, Indooroopilly and Taringa train stations, then through Kenmore to Moggill. Again, this is basically the same as the 444 currently, and its predecessor, the 440.

Another alternative would be to fund an expansion of the ferry network to Kenmore and perhaps further. If I had the option of walking a little further to get a relaxing, comfortable ride along the river, instead of sitting in traffic on an old bus, I fully would!

Hope these thoughts have been some use.
- Gordon.

Yes you are right. We don’t want a Kenmore Bypass, we don’t need it and it won’t save our long term problem. What we want is a train, a light rail transit. Please, give us the public transport so we can use it. We want our politician to stop sending a lot of cars into the road. We want them to find ways to take them off the road. Light rail transit is a very good idea. It means lesser emissons, lesser pollutions. It means saving our environment. Let’s think green. This is our home we want to save it.

You know exactly what we want. I hope you win in the election. Cheers!

Kenmore Resident

I know exactly what you want because I have been asking people what their problems are and paying attention. I don’t assume that I am cleverer than all of you. The questions on my survey are based on what people have told me. Thanks for the support. Please ask all your friends to read the web site. I want everyone to make an informed choice on election day.

Saw your letter in the latest Australian Cyclist and thought I’d drop in. I’m not in your electorate, but very interested in your themes and issues. Particularly cycling! I believe that the facilities for cyclists in Brisbane are abysmal. I cycle to work every day and can confidently state that at no point in my journey do I feel that I am catered for as a cyclist, valued by the system for reducing strain on infrastructure, decreasing polution and increasing my own levels of fitness, thus reducing the strain on the medical system. Rather, I feel that on roads, I am considered a nuisance that’s just in the way of drivers that can’t wait to fill the gap behind the car in front so they can sit in the standstill traffic at the next lights, or on “shared pathways” (that used to be “bikepaths”, albeit plagued by pedestrians), where I’m considered a nuisance because I am riding on what most pedestrians appear to consider a footpath, mostly too narrow for a proper bikeway anyway, and where I’m only barely tolerated.

I very much feel that here in Queensland, specificly Brisbane, cyclists are just not wanted by anyone. This is very much an educational issue, exacerbated by lack of policing of existing laws. In this I feel that the authorities themselves are part of the problem. All the education material is on cycling sites where the only people reading it will be cyclists, not the car drivers that it’s supposedly directed towards. If we want cycling to become a principle mode of transport in Brisbane and Queensland, cycling needs to be elevated to a position where it can’t be ignored and the cyclists can’t be targetted, either verbally or physically. We often see the funding devoted to an issue made in proportion to the perceived priority of that issue. In this regard, it has to be stated that cycling and cyclists are a perceived low priority in this state. In the face of the Government stating they want more people on bikes and less cars on roads, they are going about it with somewhat less than the zest with which I would expect to see them attack it.

When I can cycle safely throughout the whole of my trip from Alderley to my workplace in RBWH Herston, and know that I can choose a route to work where I have the priority throughout the whole of that route, then I will know that the message has gotten through. And nothing less than cyclists having priority throughout the whole of their route will get people out of cars and onto bikes, because they all know how cyclists are treated at the moment.

Thanks for your time. If you would like to discuss any of this I’ll be very willing to answer your email.

Cheers,
Lloyd Robins.

Thanks for your detailed reply. I would like to talk further after the election.

I visited Denmark in 2007, and the way they handle bike paths was a revelation. They are designed as a separate network in the city I visited (Odense), covering more of the city than the roads for cars. Everyone rides bikes there, even the elderly.

Despite some of the best food I’ve ever encountered, there are very few overweight people there. Coincidence?

Another outcome of a bike and pedestrian-oriented urban plan is that there are many more street-level shops, and shopping malls are less common, making for a more diverse and interesting shopping experience.

They also do this right in Bogota, Columba. If a developing country can design appropriate spaces for pedestrians, cyclists and cars, why can’t we?

It appears that the extension of the Centenary Highway is actually going to make trip-time longer for residents of the Springfield area, because of increased traffic.

Similarly, we’ll not only see more traffic on the Western Freeway should the Kenmore Bypass be built, but with the Warrego highway connection, those in the outer Western Suburbs will find their triptime possibly back where it was anyway because of the further increased traffic.
Particularly when considering that it will take about 5 years to build the Kenmore bypass, it seems like an awful lot of money and time to waste on a non-solution?

What can we do NOW? (Or tomorrow - but definitely not things we have to wait for multiple years before possibly seeing any improvements to the current traffic and safety situation.)

Good points. I certainly don’t see why fixing the various choke points and dangerous areas like the roundabout at Kenmore State School have been neglected for so long. We could put in a school bus system, one of my more popular proposals, in a matter of months.

I have relied on public transport since 1996, when I started high school. I use the bus on a daily basis for work, uni, and play. I put up with public transport because I have no desire to drive; light rail would make my life easier and would encourage others to patronise public transport. It would certainly make Brisbane a more convenient place to move around. Plus, there is the added bonus that you’re connected to education, shopping, and emergency services…without having to walk a block or three to get to the connecting bus/train service to get to where you need to go. Light rail that doesn’t get stuck in traffic and is a solution that offers an alternative to owning and driving a car.

I would be interested to know if anyone else has used public transport for such an extended period of time…who disagrees with light rail. I have friends who live along the Ipswich train line…a service, every half hour, and usually without fail. Compare that to a bus service that supposedly comes once an hour, is usually late, gets stuck in traffic, stops at the Wesley/Regatta for a few minutes so that driver’s can change over, and only on the odd occasion actually gets me to my destination when as per schedule.

I’d be more than happy to pay for a service that the Greens have proposed.