Lord mayor calls for 80-20 split on Story Bridge, as new footpath details revealed

The new footpath deck on the Story Bridge will be similar to the South Bank boardwalk, Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner says, as he calls for an 80-20 funding split with the federal government on the full restoration.

The Brisbane City Council budget, released on Wednesday, includes $18 million for the Story Bridge over the next 12 months, including $6.9 million to install a replacement footpath deck and repairs to other parts of the bridge.

Schrinner pointed to the $786 million Bridgewater Bridge in Tasmania, which was opened this month and received $628 million in federal funding, as evidence the Albanese government should help pay for the Story Bridge restoration.

Work to restore the Story Bridge will continue for up to 20 years.Credit: Courtney Kruk

About 22,000 vehicles a day were expected to use the Tasmanian bridge versus 100,000 daily on the Story Bridge.

“I’m simply asking for a similar deal to what people in Tasmania would get,” Schrinner said.

“Eighty-twenty is the funding split when talking about Bruce Highway upgrades – this is the Bradfield Highway ... this is not a local road. It is used by 42 per cent of people from outside Brisbane every day.”

Last month, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused the council of letting the bridge go into disrepair, and described it as a local road.

The federal government has contributed to a $5 million business case for the full restoration, with that document expected to be delivered next year, and Schrinner said work on the overall restoration would be done progressively over 15 to 20 years.

A similar bridge in Canada, the Jacques Cartier Bridge, underwent a $225 million deck restoration in the mid-2000s, and other works including reinforcement, cleaning and painting cost $118 million.

Schrinner revealed an order for the replacement footpath decking material was placed this week after a “fast-tracked tender process”.

It is being custom-made and will take at least 17 weeks to manufacture, meaning it would be made by mid-October.

The new deck on the Story Bridge footpaths will look a bit like the South Bank boardwalk.Credit: Google Street View

The council expected at least the city side of the Story Bridge footpaths to be open before the end of the year.

Then work on the second footpath would begin.

Schrinner said if lanes needed to be closed during the installation, that would be done at night to minimise disruption.

He said the footpath decking would be similar to the river walk outside the Queensland Museum.

“It’s a similar material and design to that decking,” he said.

Asked if the footpath decking would be permanent, Schrinner said there would be ongoing maintenance and replacement, but it would serve the city for “many years to come”.

He said there were at least 14 technical reports on the footpaths, which estimated they would need to be replaced between two and 10 years, but after rigorous testing following Cyclone Alfred the footpaths were closed “in the abundance of caution”.

A report dated March 5, the same day the footpaths closed, said they posed an “extreme risk” with the potential for concrete chunks to fall off, and a limit of 70 kilograms per square metre was advised.

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