[bikeqld] Toowong Bridge to open Saturday

[kim]

I wasn't down that way in the morning, so there may have been some 
opening soiree, but certainly by the afternoon all was quiet. Apart from 
myself, there were a few cyclists crossing over and coming back but 
that's about all. In fact while I was there I noticed probably more 
cyclists coming back down the road from Mt Coot-tha and heading onto the 
freeway and back up Fredrick St.

The approaches to the bridge are quite gentle in their slope, certainly 
not your same kind of spiral approach as the wooden one on the Victoria 
bridge in town. It must be the best Faraday cage ever (apart from the 
ped/bike bridge/tube south of the border, crossing the Motorway at 
Billinudgel), just the place to hang out in a lightning storm :)  MR 
must have this thing about painting these bridges red or perhaps over 
ordered the red paint. The bike bridge at Logan is fully red, this one 
just has the red trimmings. Well they are red now but will no doubt turn 
to DDR in the short term, just like the Logan one.
I wasn't really in my normal critical mode yesterday afternoon and so I 
did not look at the design attributes too closely but I was a little 
surprised to see that they had just used chainwire fencing alongside the 
approaches on the Mt Coot-that side. That style of fencing is 
specifically stated in the Austroads Part 14 manual that it is not to be 
used bordering a bikeway. No doubt it was done because it is pretty 
cheap. MR use it on much of the adjoining bikeway but that was built 
some 20 years ago before the research and the manual. I doubt 'a 
consistent aesthetic' was the driving force.
My initial thoughts on the pedestrian/cyclist separation on the Anzac 
park approach was that the separation by grade was a good thing making 
it a bit more obvious who goes where but I guess time will tell how that 
works. The thin strip of grass between the two further along seems a 
waste of maintenance and encourages more mowers/tractors on the paths. 
There is a bit more signage pointing out the adjoining bikeway is bike 
only but that afternoon I would say there were more than usual 
pedestrians walking on the bikeway towards Indooroopilly. MR has gone to 
the effort to put down pavement markings on the new sections but the 
older bikeway has absolutely no signs or pavement markings to advise 
pedestrians on its entire  few kilometre length. Will also have a bit of 
a look at it after dark to see how things look (or perhaps don't look).
k
 

mich rolling wrote:
> Apparently the Toowong bicycle bridge is to open on Saturday (thanks to Roadgrime whoever she may be);
>
> Quote: http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3864
> I am glad to inform you that the overpass is scheduled to be open this weekend (7 March), weather permitting. 
> Yours sincerely, 
> Toowong Roundabout Overpass Project Team 
>
> BOM.gov.au reports Thursday and Friday weather fine so should be finished,
>  Saturday 'mostly fine' so an opening should be on. The opening of the Normandy tunnel was pretty lame from a cyclist attendence point of view so this one may well be as well (admission - I won't be there as work requires me elsewhere :( 
>
> No comment on Bicycle Queensland website (would you expect it?) or Queensland Transport or Main Roads websites. I do not know what the 'caretaker' protocols are for opening a facility like this during an election campaign. Maybe prohibited?
>
>
>
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