The new veloway extension is now open! The V1 links bicycle riders from Griffith Uni, Toohey Forest and all points east right down to the Brisbane River at the Goodwill Bridge.
This was a $45 M project compared with over $300M for the four lane upgrade to Lytton Road at East Brisbane.
My brother and I triked (=riding re-cumbent tricycles) up and down the veloway this morning clocking up 20 kms in an hour and a half with a couple of short nature breaks.
It was magnificent! Almost to the standard of the great run from the Brisbane Valley rail trail ending to Wulkuraka railway station, known as the Brassall Bikeway.
Below are some excerpts from the Main Roads website and suggestions from Space for Cycling lobby group. Congratulations to Space for Cycling for their activism and sense in working for better cycleways in Brisbane.
Our biggest thanks goes to the workers who built this extension for making cycling a better and safer form of transport. Thanks goes to the Minister, Mark Bailey, for his support of this project and his criticism of the Lytton Road upgrade.
Never mind the good-hearted banter that the Minister was out with his cement mixer after hours and on weekends to help workers complete the project under budget and on-time.
Ian Curr
24 June 2020
The Veloway 1 (V1) is a dedicated cycleway designed to connect people riding bikes between Lower River Terrace, South Brisbane and Eight Mile Plains, adjacent to the Pacific Motorway.
The 17 kilometre cycleway will provide a route for people travelling by bicycle.
Upgrades to the V1 are being made in stages to (partially) remove multiple road crossings and to improve safety where on-road crossings still exist.
V1 Stage E is currently under construction but is due for completion in mid 2020.
WBT supported Space for Cycling in their bid for improvements to the Veloway 1 connection at Tarragindi. As ‘Space for Cycling‘ recommends the best course is for a fly over this dangerous stretch of road for bikes.
As one cyclist comments:
“The transport Department website makes it clear that the Birdwood road crossing at Tarragindi is not part of the V1 stage E, so the crossing will remain in place for some time to come. Lord knows how it will be done if they ever get to it . There is certainly not enough space to run it under the Busway and the Freeway. Hopefully they will tidy up the crossing and the road or footpath on the Southern side of Birdwood Road and broaden the waiting areas for bicycles at the crossing . They could also reset the lights for peak hours for commuter cyclists as Birdwood road is not all that busy for cars”
Just as stage E was finishing , the Brisbane City Council workers arrived to do the necessary work to fix 50 to 100 m gap between the Birdwood road crossing and the entry to the new work . To be fair , they have done about the best they could do with quite a tricky connection. Ideally we will have the V1 connected with no crossing in due course but the arrangement in the meantime is reasonably good by comparison to some other bicycle infrastructure