[bikeqld] coro drv bikeway specs....

[kim]

I raised some design issues relating to the upgraded section with BCC; 
in particular the use of the split face wall blocks, the clearance of 
the rest stop on the bike side and width of the path. BCC responded that 
everything was per the Austroads guidelines and furthermore that 
"Bicycle Queensland has been a major stakeholder in this project and 
continues to provide advice for future stages of the Bicentennial 
Bikeway upgrade."  BCC advises me that the finished path will provide an 
edge line 0.5m from the split face wall, a 3.5m bike section, a 2m 
pedestrian section and a further 0.5m shoulder on the river side. They 
also advise that the bike rest area provides a 1m clearance from the 
bikeway in accordance with the good book.
That all had me a bit confused. So I took a tape to it today. The edge 
line looks set to be 0.5m from the wall as promised, however when I 
measure the new bike section at the Park Rd end it only measures 2.64m, 
far short of the promised 3.5m. When you get to the rest stop the track 
does become wider and seems to meet the spec but between there and Park 
Rd it seems to taper in significantly, but not abruptly. The pedestrian 
side seems to maintain its 2m width all the way but looks wickedly 
narrow for the sort of pedestrian behaviour that has been commonplace 
for so many years down there. The Park Rd end is really not much wider 
than the rest of the track used to be; sure it was not all paved but 
peds and cyclists could get onto the grass in a pinch. So for all the 
money we have spent on it we seem to have ended up with a bottleneck 
anyway. As for the 1m clearance at the rest area, that would seem to 
imply that the rest area is up on top of the seat there. If you sit on 
the seat and place your bike in front of the seat that would seem to me 
to put you just 0.5m from the track not 1m as BCC claims. I am just a 
little concerned that bikes might have to be just propped up there with 
pedal against the seat as not everyone has a sidestand and such bikes 
could easily topple back onto the track. A rubbish bin seems to have 
evolved there too which eats up much of that clearance, hoping that not 
going to be a permanent fixture.
As for the choice of using the jagged split face blocks for a bounding 
wall, BCC says that they chose these to match the ones used near the 
regatta hotel end (a design done some quarter of a century ago, before 
the Austroads guidelines and much lower in height). While BCC did not 
specifically say that BQ was happy with all of the design details or 
even whether BQ were made privy to all the finer design details, they 
did try to infer that BQ was fully engaged in the design. I don't think 
that is likely to be true. BQ may have been 'consulted' but there is no 
telling that any of their recommendations were adopted or even 
considered. But hey, perhaps it all good and my measurements and 
concerns are a little off the mark.
It looks like somebody had got the message that the transition from the 
old divided section to the new separated section was fraught with risk 
but I think the complex arrangement of blues and green replete with 
yellow marked speed humps and the attempt to get pedestrians to cross 
the bike path at right angles is not going to have a lot of effect. Even 
today there were iPedestrians walking along obliviously on the green 
side. Green side? Yep the red on the newer north quay section seems to 
be out of favour with the BCC this year, so it really is a rainbow 
experience riding to town now. (and don't forget those blue LED lamps on 
the trackside too)
While all this Van Gogh work was being done last Friday night it was 
closed to cyclists by a few traffic cones, the gap between them was 
wider than some of our bikeways and not unexpectedly a cyclists rode in, 
there was no traffic controller. Then there was a yell from a traffic 
controller up on Coro Drv, and cyclists including myself were told to 
use the footpath toward Toowong. No detour signs, no dismount signs, 
seemingly no plan at all. Footpath is extremely narrow there and has No 
Cyclists signs placed further along and a barrier fence to prevent you 
getting on the road. I got on the road before the fence but others did 
not. I pointed out this craziness of this half arsed attempt to divert 
cyclists off the track and seemingly onto a closed footpath or the road 
at night. BCC rang me back and said it intended cyclists to push their 
bikes to Toowong using the footpath. Total crap - they just did not have 
a plan in place and there is no room to push cycles along there when 
there are pedestrians using it.
Well I guess we only have about another five such 'upgrades' to happen.





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