One leader described a lord mayoral candidate of having an “anti-motorist agenda”, while a candidate has suggested a public vote on banning hired e-scooters.
  • ZagorathOPEnglish
    5·
    3 months ago

    I hope they don’t mind, but here’s the text that was shared along with this article by Space4CyclingBne:

    It’s great to see active transport acknowledged as major issue in this Brisbane City Council election campaign. More people are realising the importance of transport choices in making our city and suburbs safe and pleasant places to live and work. As Brisbane Times points out:

    “Even if you love your car, encouraging more people to walk or ride will reduce congestion on Brisbane’s clogged roads for everyone.” Although this article talks a lot about how much the LNP have spent on a few major projects in their last 4-year term, the current administration have actually delivered very little in terms of kilometres of connected, protected and usable cycling routes. Their policies going in to this election hint at more of the same.

    Meanwhile, Tracey Price for Lord Mayor and Brisbane Labor have promised additional money to fix footpaths and build new ones, and plant more street trees. They have also committed to completing the CBD cycling grid and restoring funding to the Northern Brisbane Bikeway, as well as establishing a suburban congestion taskforce to take a more strategic approach to improving transport across the city - including the top priority missing connections identified by bicycle user groups.

    The Brisbane Times does something of a dis-service to Jonathan Sriranganathan and the Greens who have a very detailed plan to give residents the freedom to get around without a car. They will start by building 35km of protected bike and scooter lanes on 15 high priority corridors (as identified by the BUGs), and start planning for more. They aim to create direct connections by prioritising bike and scooter lanes to schools, hospitals, community facilities and shops and modernising Council’s street design standards. The Greens policy also acknowledges that Brisbane has a vibrant cycling community, with local grassroots groups pushing to make cycling safe, practical and fun. But the current LNP administration has ignored these calls for protected bike lanes across the city.

    We’ve seen how much progress has been achieved in a very short time in cities like Paris and London. The missing ingredient in Brisbane is leadership!

    When you go to vote next Saturday 16 March, we encourage you to vote for candidates with a vision and a plan for Brisbane that will make our streets and suburbs healthier, safer, calmer and more pleasant. It is not compulsory to number all the squares, but doing so will help ensure that your vote still counts towards the final result in your local area and for Lord Mayor.

    Personally, I’m not sure I agree that it’s done a disservice to Sriranganathan, I thought he came across very well in the article. Rather, I would say that the article is far too friendly to the LNP. It gets across the LNP’s bs line about the number of dollars spent, while ignoring the fact that the LNP has delivered such a pitiful amount of actual bikeway on the ground.