Opinion: Cyclists are a menace that should be banned from roads

MOST cyclists are a menace to civilised society and riders should be banned from almost all inner-city roads, writes Des Houghton. JOIN THE DEBATE

I HAVE come to the conclusion that most cyclists are a menace to civilised society.

And I believe cyclists should be banned from almost all inner-city roads and have their machines confiscated if they ride on the footpath.

The very word footpath should alert them to the fact that they are there for foot traffic only.

And I condemn the State Government and the Brisbane City Council for pandering to cyclists.

Cyclists cause traffic chaos, slow the delivery of vital goods and services, harm the economy and expose themselves, and others, to great danger.

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I especially deplore the car-hating Lycra louts who think they can ride their $6000 cycles anywhere they damn well please.

Anywhere, that is, except on the bikeways that seem to me to be empty most of the time.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been squandered pandering to this insufferable, self-righteous minority. Brisbane council alone spent $120 million in the four years to 2016. Another $100 million is in the pipeline.

Cyclists are a blight on society, says Des Houghton.

Former transport and infrastructure minister Jackie Trad, whose electorate embraces West End, has approved a $600,000 study to examine cycling and other transport opportunities in South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point and Woolloongabba.

Enough already! Extra bike lanes slow traffic flow.

We have bred a tribe of two-wheeled show ponies who are slowly strangling our great capital.

Cyclists are also freeloaders.

They pay no rego or petrol tax, and they park for free wherever they like.

So cyclists, in the main, are subsidised by motorists.

Derryn Hinch once famously referred to cyclists as cockroaches on wheels, and I’m beginning to understand his point of view. And it’s about to get much worse.

I’m told lanes on busy inner-city roads will be shut and hundreds of car parks stolen as bikeways are extended.

Here, I hasten to add, I am not against bikeway networks that provide a healthy and inexpensive mode of travel. And if people want to ride round and round in circles on the velodrome, good luck to them. But I don’t think bicycles should be allowed to mingle with cars. It’s a recipe for tragedy.

Alarm bells are now ringing in South Brisbane.

A proposal for extra bike lanes will see the removal of two car lanes on Stanley St in front of the Mater Hospital.

This is lunacy. Stanley St, as it happens, is Greater Brisbane’s slowest commuter road, according to the council.

Lower River Terrace local residents including Dave Russell, Michael Crowther, and Anne Sutton protest the loss of trees for a bikeway project. Picture: Liam Kidston

Parking spaces along a string of roads around the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital are also to be cut to improve the cycle tracks.

With the hospital’s car parks invariably full by midday, young lives may be placed at risk.

As part of the bike binge, 30 mature shade trees beside the river on Lower River Terrace near South Bank have been given a death sentence. And the grassy verge will become a cement strip 4m wide.

It’s vandalism. The threat to trees and street car spaces has incensed residents in luxury apartment towers in the street, who say the project was put to them as a fait accompli.

“Residents in the area are extremely concerned about the negative impact for all road users of the proposed Woolloongabba and Kangaroo Point bikeways,” says Dave Russell, 80.

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The retired flour miller was speaking on behalf of more than 700 people, many of them retirees, who live in Southbank Apartments, Park Avenue at South Bank, River Plaza, Riverview Gardens and Riviera Terraced Villas.

They have formed a protest group to save the trees and the car spaces used by visitors to their neighbourhood.

Russell and his urban warriors want Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and their local MP, Ms Trad, to hit the pause button to allow more community consultation.

“We are especially concerned with the removal of 90 car spaces, a cab rank, and eight loading zones from within a 750m radius of the Mater Hospital and the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital,” he says.

I drove around Cilento twice this week and noticed all three car parks had the red “FULL” signs up before midday. Perhaps Ms Trad expects sick children to arrive on bicycles.

Says Russell: “If you think parking is difficult now, wait until another 90 spaces disappear.”

He points out that bikeways are empty at night, while the hospitals operate around the clock.

Site of the bikeway expansion at South Brisbane

Despite protests, the council has called tenders for the work.

Russell is deeply concerned that council has also signalled it will permanently close the Stanley St slip lane to the southeast freeway at the Leopard St intersection.

Russell has done his homework and points to council statistics that show 65,000 vehicle movements a day in the Vulture St, Stanley St, Dock St and Graham St area. There were 850 cyclist movements – just 2 per cent of all movements.

Russell makes it clear that he is not “anti-cyclist” and he believes the car-free 17km “veloway” from Eight Mile Plains to South Brisbane is a positive development.

He says five members of his family ride bikes.

Russell met with planners, who told him it would cost between $4.2 million and $4 million to extend the veloway less than 400m from his apartment block to the Goodwill Bridge.

And it’s unclear how the route will traverse the maritime museum and Griffith University film school.

Speedy cyclists will make it more dangerous for all pedestrians, especially the elderly who live in nearby apartment blocks.

At least one a week is already being bowled over on Lower River Tce.

Russell has urged the State Government and council to consider the backlash that’s occurring in Vancouver, Canada, where a political party has emerged with a platform to abolish bike lanes.

Restore Vancouver blames the lanes for “wrecking” the city and causing traffic congestion “with bizarre obstacles and deviations”.

“It sounds similar to what’s happening in Brisbane,’’ Russell says.

Student block on hold?

THE University of Queensland has mysteriously axed a showpiece $251 million residential project for 1300 students on its St Lucia campus.

UQ property chief Steve Dickson confirmed in a statement that the tender process had been halted.

However, the projects may not be doomed. Dickson says the university “remains committed to delivering
on-campus residential accommodation in line with market demand and is working towards developing a revised proposal”. Hmmm.

Member for Mirani Stephen Andrew is the first Pacific Islander descendant in Queensland Parliament.

Maintaining identity

STEPHEN Andrew, the state’s first South Sea Islander in Parliament, has called on Islanders not to betray their heritage by describing themselves as “indigenous” or “Aboriginal” on official papers.

“That would be perjury, as well as a betrayal, in my opinion,” he says.

The Member for Mirani says Islanders have, for years, been improperly lumped together with Aborigines and urged by well-meaning social workers and bureaucrats to fit the indigenous pigeonhole.

Andrew says his forebears died horrible deaths as slaves yet their efforts have not been properly acknowledged by Queensland.

“They know what went on. They know what happened,” he says.

Andrew asked about a formal apology in a question in Parliament but was fobbed off by Multicultural Affairs Minister Stirling Hinchliffe.

Andrew’s great great grandmother was kidnapped while playing on a beach in the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu, and carried to Queensland as a slave. She was 15.

Andrew is now seeking low-interest loans for Islander business start-ups.

He says there is a $95 million “slush fund” for indigenous businesses, but Islanders are ineligible to apply.

Andrew did not have a happy first day in Parliament. While the new Member for Cook, Cynthia Lui, was given a rousing welcome as the first Torres Strait Islander to win a place in the House, Andrew was snubbed.

Guts and glory

I THINK Massimo Speroni is channelling his Italian culinary heritage in his new “beef discovery” degustation menu to coincide with Beef Week.

The chef at Bacchus restaurant at Rydges hotel at South Bank is offering an 11-course head-to-tail feast ($189, $279 with wine) until May 26.

I am delighted to see tongue, beef cheeks, sweetbreads and even cow tail on the menu, as well as full-blood Angus fillets and full-blood wagyu from David Blackmore.

Speroni regrets offal meats have been in decline for 50 years.

I’m expecting a highlight to be anolini ravioli stuffed with Blackmore’s shin beef and served with parmigiano and a simple broth.

Speroni, 33, tells me his grandmother taught him how to make it. He has been a chef since he was 14.

An added treat will be matching wines from historic Kay Brothers of McLaren Vale, who will supply treats like the 2005 Kay Brothers Hillside Shiraz from vines more than three decades old.

Unaligned

THE Nurses Professional Association of Queensland signed up another 32 members last week and now has a total membership of 2579, the secretary Cath Seaver tells me.

It’s a remarkable achievement for the breakaway union.

And it’s a blow to the left-wing Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union, which seems more concerned about sucking up to the ALP.

The NPAQ is prospering because it is not politically aligned and its membership fees are low.

It serves as a warning to all unions who believe they have a monopoly on members.

Irritant of the week

SHAMEFUL price gouging by the State Labor Government. In a hit to working families, the Government has been secretly scooping $5 billion from Queensland households through excessive electricity charges.
Energy Minister Anthony Lynham should resign.