Brisbane's deputy mayor rails against 'radical' Greens proposal to reduce car dependency
Brisbane's deputy mayor rails against 'radical' Greens proposal to reduce car dependency
Brisbane could be harder for drivers but easier for cyclists and pedestrians under a sweeping proposal by the Greens to "de-prioritise" cars in favour of people ahead of the local election in March.
LNP against common sense progress proposed by the Greens. I think I've heard this one before.
The amount of fear mongering the deputy mayor tries to spread in that article is ridiculous. That dosage is not safe for people who can't think critically
That's the her job. She's constantly doing this shit. Never contributes anything. Her role in the civic cabinet is to be the attack dog against Labor and the Greens. Sort of like what Deputy Premier Miles did at a state level, before Palaszczuk resigned.
It's also completely on-brand for the Brisbane LNP. They literally called it "socialist" to lower speed limits on local streets to 30 km/h.
Sriranganathan has posted a response to this on his Facebook. Here's a direct link.
And below is the full text:
Um, WTF?
Today the Greens have announced a city council election campaign proposal to install 200 new pedestrian crossings over the next four years. The LNP Deputy Mayor says this is 'radical.' According to her, installing pedestrian crossings and bike lanes is an 'attack on motorists.'
This response is hilarious (and kinda unhinged).
She says our proposal is 'reckless.'
Newsflash for Councillor Adams: Expecting kids who are walking to school to cross the road WITHOUT the safety of a proper pedestrian crossing is reckless. Asking cyclists to ride along 60km/h roads without safe separation from cars is reckless. Insisting that our city's transport network can continue to revolve around petrol-powered cars that generate high carbon emissions and cook the planet is reckless.
This kind of reaction to a modest, sensible proposal paints a really clear picture of just how hostile to active transport the current LNP council administration really is. We are dealing with a group of councillors who ACTIVELY OPPOSE basic pedestrian safety upgrades.
A comment he put in the replies to his post:
Someone asked which road projects would be cut to fund this idea...
It's important to stress that we're not proposing to cut the road maintenance budget. We're proposing to stop spending so much money on widening roads and building new roads - that's very different to resurfacing existing roads.
This year's council budget allocates $103 million towards road network resurfacing (slightly higher than usual because they're still repairing damage from February 2022). Usually the LNP allocate about $90 million per year towards this. (See page 260 of the budget: https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2023-06/20230612-Annual-Plan-and-Budget-2023-24_0.pdf)
Personally I think the council should be INCREASING its resurfacing budget slightly (maybe keep it at $100 million on an ongoing basis) because it's cheaper and more sustainable to resurface roads BEFORE they get too cracked and the potholes get too big.
As to the question of which roads wouldn't get widened...
Each year, the LNP announces new road-widening and intersection-widening projects. They have a VERY long list of corridors that they'd like to widen. (You can see just a small selection of this list in the LGIP Schedule of Works documents - https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/planning-and-building/planning-guidelines-and-tools/local-government-infrastructure-plan/lgip-components-extrinsic-material-and-supporting-documents)
This image is an excerpt from the 2023-24 budget and gives you a flavour of the sorts of costs of these major road projects. For this financial year, there's over $35 million of road-widening/intersection capacity expansion just in those four projects in that image, with more spending in subsequent years.
There are many many more road-widening projects in the budget under headings like 'Suburban Corridor Modernisation,' 'Major Road Network Improvements,' 'Better Roads for Brisbane,' 'Congestion Busting Projects' etc.
The LNP's total spend on road-widening and intersection-widening varies a little bit from year to year, but currently averages about $250-$300 million per year (depends a bit on how you define and quantify projects that involve a degree of road-widening but also other kinds of improvements). Almost all of that money is being wasted on road-widening that won't reduce congestion and will simply encourage more cars onto the road.
Many of the intersections that the LNP are spending money on DO need to be redesigned to improve safety, add bike lanes, improve pedestrian connectivity etc, but they don't need to be widened. They could be upgraded to prioritise active transport for a fraction of the cost (and those intersection redesign costs are factored into the $90 million/year we're proposing to put towards bike infrastructure).
So I can't give you a specific list of which roads won't be widened, because we don't know for sure exactly which roads the LNP would like to widen next. All I can say is that each year they consistently spend a couple hundred million widening different roads, and we would stop doing that.
The Greens are the voice of reason, and the LNP are the unhinged ones. Has it always been this way? Seems weird that the older I get, the less the LNP appeals to me. Or should I say, the more it disgusts me. I thought it was supposed to be the opposite - as wrinkles and greys appear, I suddenly start wanting to tune in the Sky News and start cheering on whatever conservative bollocks the Liberals are pushing that night.
Brisbane is the most hostile city I've ever lived in.
I won't ever think about going back there unless the car dependency is almost completely gone. The fact that huge stretches of such a beautiful river are taken up by multiple levels of roads is insane to me.
Haha bikes are 'radical' now... Honestly Brisbane traffic has become a sh*tshow over the years. A quiter, safer, walkable/rideable Brisbane is the only way forward.
Seriously, give me anything so that I don't have to drive in that traffic.
I think there are plans for a train line out my way, but who knows how long that will take.
Stupid politician doesnβt understand induced demand. This is nothing new in Australia, you can induce demand in driving and alternatives it works both ways and ironically giving people alternatives means less traffic.