New green bridges linking one congested area to another spells trouble

It is fatuous for Council to invite public involvement and interest in proposals such as five new Brisbane bridges without providing more than vague ideals and blurry maps, writes Terry Sweetman

THE University of Queensland has a master plan that seems premised on sending its grasping tentacles out into the surrounding suburb to the distress of many residents.

These are matters that make some people around here very grumpy. They get together and try to contain this academic amoeba and its 48,000 students within the boundaries of its generously-gifted land that is increasingly squandered on institutions that have little to do with the core business of education, on car parks, sporting facilities and, lately, a children’s playground.

University of Queensland master plan debated at St Lucia forum

Things such as the Brain Institute and others are worthy, productive and prestigious, help keep UQ in the top five universities in Australia and fulfil one of the requirements of University of Queensland Act. They also make the university a honey trap for foreign students and feed its limitless ambitions for growth.

Apart from resident groups, another outfit that has a sometimes touchy relationship with the university is Brisbane City Council. The above-mentioned Act gives UQ enormous autonomy and leaves it largely able to operate outside the bounds of local government.

Aerial view of UQ St Lucia campus, showing the Brisbane River and the Eleanor Schonell (green) Bridge

The council’s relationship with the university is analogous to its relationship with Brisbane airport, which is also largely autonomous because it operates under the federal Airports Act. In both cases, the council is left to provide the transport infrastructure made necessary by seemingly boundless growth and increasing numbers of staff, students, employees, visitors, merchants and traffic.

This is reflected in at least one (possibly two) of the five “green bridges” announced by Adrian Schrinner in March after the reading of Graham Quirk’s lord mayoral will and touted in a letter to residents this week. The bridges are foot and bicycle links from Kangaroo Point to the CBD and across Breakfast Creek, and foot, bicycle and bus links from Toowong to West End, St Lucia to West End, and Bellbowrie to Wacol. (The Lord Mayor’s letter suggests the Bellbowrie bridge actually goes nowhere but that might be a proofreading error.)

Brisbane City Council Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner’s big goal

The self-proclaimed river city has precious few bridges and needs a lot more. It might sound a fanciful comparison but Paris has 37 bridges across the Seine; the Paris of the south has but 15. The problem is considered public infrastructure investment is once again at least 50 years behind the developmental free for all.

New Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner. Picture: Supplied

In my part of the world old-timers tell me a link from St Lucia to West End has been a bone of contention since back in the tram days when girders were actually delivered to build a bridge. And still they argue about it and still they’re suspicious.

My chief concern is that Schrinner invited residents to visit the council website as part of “upcoming consultation’’ but the map is about as useful as trams on a freeway.

It shows the ends of the five bridges as amorphous blobs covering comparatively wide areas. For example, our St Lucia bridge would start in Guyatt Park but there is no indication of precisely where it would begin or end. These things matter and the irony of trespassing on a well-used green park to build a green bridge has not been lost on residents.

Brisbane City Council’s green bridges proposal resurrected. Picture: map from BCC's website

Worse, the approaches to this proposed bridge just sort of wander off north and south with nothing to indicate where all this traffic would flow in areas already as congested as an old pipe smoker’s lungs. I wouldn’t like to be around if someone called in an air strike based on such maps.

This might reflect my vested interest and my local knowledge but I suspect residents near the other proposed bridges would be equally baffled.

Artist’s impression of a bridge at Kangaroo Point.

I would be very much surprised if Schrinner was so irresponsible as to make these announcements without access to a lot more detail. Throwing such a skunk into a darkened room is an affront, causing little more than confusion and fear among those whose comfort, amenity and real estate values would be intimately affected.

It is fatuous to invite public involvement and interest without providing more than vague ideals and blurry maps. It makes this seem more a hasty, new-boy public relations exercise than a planning proposal.

We’ve all heard of the mushroom treatment: Fed on BS and kept in the dark. Well, we’ve certainly got the darkness. My wife, normally easily perturbed by such things, was sanguine when I showed her the letter “We’ll be dead and gone by the time they build it,’’ she said.

RACQ survey reignites debate over green bridge

You should be careful of what you wish but, in this case, I sort of hope she’s right.

[e-mail]