Brisbane is definitely manageable without a car, but depending on where you live and what your hobbies are, it can be extremely difficult. A trip I regularly take from where I live in St Lucia to where a good friend lives in Carseldine takes me easily three times as long by public transport as it does to drive. And you can forget cycling, because the safe route only gets you 90% of the way with that last 10% being one of the most dangerous stroads in the city (Gympie Rd through Aspley), and it’s a massive roundabout route that’s probably at least 50% further than taking the direct route given to cars.

And if you’ve got hobbies that require you to go somewhere, like sports or some sort of social club, our public transport is just awful. Off-peak frequency is so bad in many places, and the lack of good feeder-style routes means you may have to go most of the way into the CBD and back out just to get a couple of suburbs over.

I really wish this weren’t the case, but I lived without a car for about half a decade, and frankly my social life expanded very greatly after I got my licence.

even if they’re not perfect

When they’re 2 m wide and not next to parked cars it’s a lot easier to say that, I feel. A lot of the painted “bike lanes” we get are either narrower than 2 m, put you right in the door zone of parked cars, or both. And in that case, I do think that it’s worse than not having anything at all. Because then you’re stuck between riding in an unsafe location on the road (in the door zone, or the far left where you might get squeezed out), or safely moving out into the general lane and potentially angering ignorant motorists.

Which is why painted lanes are landed on as the compromise, right? Like, if we (royal we) didn’t come out and demand good practices then they would, by virtue of trying to do as much with as little as possible, just dismiss the need for safe infrastructure out of hand.