Still no start date for removing flood-hit restaurant from bikeway

Frustrated cyclists and pedestrians still have no clue when work will start on removing a 200 tonne restaurant washed up on Queensland’s busiest bikeway. And from Monday, the fiasco will hit motorists using busy Coronation Drive.

Frustrated cyclists and pedestrians still have no clue when work will start on removing the 200 tonne, derelict Drift restaurant from Queensland’s busiest bikeway.

But when cranes move on site at Milton in Brisbane’s inner west, it will take as little as three days to lift the damaged steel hulk off the Bicentennial Bikeway.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey today (March 23) defended the delay, saying it was a unique “extraction’’ and the structure was so unstable safety was paramount.

It also emerged a crane or cranes have not yet been booked, although Mr Bailey confirmed two huge cranes presently in use on the river were being looked at by Maritime Safety Queensland engineers.

Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey at the wrecked restaurant. Picture: Adam Head

It is believed they were the crane at the Queens Wharf casino site and one being used to build Council’s Kangaroo Point-CBD green bridge.

Mr Bailey said Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner had contacted him asking for help only one-and-a-half weeks ago.

He again denied Council’s claims on Tuesday that work would not start for five to six weeks.

Transport Chair Ryan Murphy said the long delay meant Council had no option other than to close a turning lane near the site, to allow cyclists to get past the blockage.

The speed limit in a small section of Coronation Drive would also drop from 60kmh to 40kmh from Monday.

The riverside cycleway, which takes 5000 people a day, will be closed for an unknown period. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

A rare legal direction to the Queensland Reconstruction Authority (QRA), used only once before in the 2011 floods to repair a Toowoomba water pipeline, then had to be drafted early this week.

“I don’t want to be putting a time frame on it,’’ Mr Bailey said when asked when work would begin.

“This is a unique extraction job, it hasn’t been done before.

“We are just waiting for the safety information from the engineers, they’re putting it all together.

“We will start the recovery as soon as we possibly can.’’

Mr Bailey declined to say if difficulties negotiating with Drift owner Ken Allsop had partly been responsible for the delays, but said securing suitable cranes had not been easy.

‼️DRIFT UPDATE‼️

We’ve received advice that the State Government may not be able to remove the old Drift restaurant from the Bicentennial Bikeway for another six weeks. pic.twitter.com/43iKZwhQ34

— Adrian Schrinner (@bne_lordmayor) March 22, 2022

“We are exploring two cranes currently being employed in the river, but there are a number of jobs on at the moment,’’ he said.

“From when they start the job they think they can probably open up the bikeway in three to five days.

“It will take three to five weeks to deal with it altogether.’’

He could not confirm if the structure, which has been an eyesore on the riverfront at Milton since 2011 when it was washed by floods into the Go Between Bridge, would need to be cut up.

Mr Bailey said it was so unstable that could be determined only once a crane, or cranes, began lifting it.