Bicentennial Bikeway sewerage works

Between early October 2004 and December 2006 a section of the Bicentennial Bikeway at Milton was closed for some work on a sewerage pipe that comes across from West End (via the Riverside Drive sewerage works).

Schedule

Originally expected to take only a few months, the main works ended up taking more than two years. The delays were blamed on a failure in the tunnelling process [1].

Detour

The detour provided was notoriously poor, particularly considering the high volume of traffic the path carries (some 2,100 bikes each workday according to the Hale Street Link Draft IAS) and the long duration of the works.

The detour was narrow, the corners at the ends were sharp (45° at the Toowong end, 90° at the City end) and the surface (originally smooth boards and later carpet) was the subject of many complaints.

The detour was initially marked with yellow (advisory) "Cyclists must dismount" signs, but after some altercations between mounted cyclists and pedestrians, including some media attention, and some enforcement of the sign, the signs were eventually changed to "Cyclists must slow down".

Completion

The works were virtually complete and the detour removed at the beginning of 2007, with some minor works ongoing over the first few months of 2007. The track was re-surfaced and re-marked with no significant changes to how it was prior to the works over two years earlier.