Story Bridge protesters hit back at ‘illegal’ claim as dispute heads to court

More than 80 days after the Story Bridge’s footpaths were closed, the saga has taken a dramatic turn, with police taking protesters to court over plans to close traffic lanes for a peak-hour march.

Protesters want to shut all six lanes of traffic on the Story Bridge from 8am on Friday for a one-hour walk across the bridge, to draw attention to their calls for Brisbane City Council to allocate one car lane to pedestrian, cyclist and scooter traffic while the footpaths are repaired.

They want a similar arrangement to the temporary active transport lane set up on Coronation Drive in 2022 when the former Drift restaurant blocked the Bicentennial Bikeway.

The Story Bridge protest will be decided in court on Thursday morning.

The Story Bridge footpaths – used by about 4000 walkers, bike and scooter riders daily – were closed on March 5, with reports later revealing several parts of the bridge were an “extreme risk” to the public, while council has called for cash from the state and federal governments to restore it.

Brisbane councillor Andrew Wines this week accused protesters of “taking a leaf out of the Extinction Rebellion playbook” and holding an “illegal protest”.

“They plan to hold Brisbane commuters to ransom and cause chaos, just like Extinction Rebellion did a few years ago,” he said.

“They plan to hold Brisbane commuters to ransom and cause chaos, just like Extinction Rebellion did a few years ago.”

Councillor Andrew Wines

But organiser Kathryn Good said she submitted a notice of intention of the protest on May 20, making it authorised action under the Peaceful Assembly Act, and claims the protest were illegal were not “not only offensive, it’s just actually untrue”.

“At this very moment, the protest is not only legal, it’s authorised,” she said.

After mediation last week failed to resolve the issue, a magistrate will on Thursday be asked to decide whether to keep or change the protest’s time or location, and whether it should go ahead.

In a post on social media, Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said experts ruled out closing lanes on the Story Bridge for cyclists and pedestrians because the footpaths were about three metres wide on both sides, meaning about six metres would be required to carry the normal volume of pedestrians, cyclists and scooter users.

Heavier vehicles have been banned from the outside lanes of the Story Bridge since 2022.Credit: Courtney Kruk

“The traffic lanes on the bridge are only 3.1 metres wide, and if you add water-filled barriers [required for safety] this would take up at least 0.6 metres and leave only around 2.5 metres available for pedestrians, cyclists and scooter users travelling in both directions,” the post read.

“As a result, two traffic lanes would need to be closed.”

Schrinner said closing two of the bridge’s six lanes would cause widespread traffic issues on the Riverside Expressway, Inner City Bypass, Wynnum and Gympie roads, and Stanley and Vulture streets.

The Space 4 Cycling group has claimed while the footpaths were three metres wide on blueprints, they had been narrowed by the safety railing, and parts of the footpath were between just more than two metres and 2.4 metres wide at several points.

Workers on the Story Bridge footpath on Wednesday.Credit: Cameron Atfield

They said if one of the 3.1-metre outer lanes was turned into an active travel path, a row of 560mm barriers would leave a 2.54m shared path “which would be wider than what we have been using for decades”.

Good said protesters would comply with any court orders made.

In April, cyclists protested by riding across the Story Bridge in one traffic lane, escorted by police cars, on a Saturday, but Good said it “didn’t work – there was no response from council”.

“What we’re trying to point out with this protest is how much of a disparate response there is between closing the bridge for one hour for cars versus closing the bridge for months on end, with no end in sight for active transport users,” she said.

Just two days after their planned protest, the Story Bridge will be closed to all traffic on Sunday for seven hours – from 4am to 11am – so people can run across it during the Brisbane Marathon.

There is no date for when the footpaths will reopen, although Schrinner said the first stage would be footpath repairs, with a potential temporary structure floated, and former users are directed on a lengthy detour via the Kangaroo Point Bridge and busy CBD streets, or a bus or ferry.

A business case for the full bridge restoration is not due until 2027.

Good said the proposed detour through the city was “really unsafe” and much longer, and she had heard of two crashes.

“The section along the Riverwalk is pretty narrow at points, there’s usually crowds of pedestrians trying to get on and off ferries, trying to go in and out of restaurants – it’s just a nightmare to get through,” she said.